Hi,
I have a little idea that could be really helpful for Wikipedians if it could be implemented. Google has
scanned in a vast collection of books. Some of these scanned pages can be read online via Google Books, and serves an important resource for Wikipedians confirming the verifiability of text added to Wikipedia. However, many of the scanned pages can
not be read: in some cases only an arbitrary selection of pages in a given book can be read, which may not be the ones need; in other cases, pages can not be read at all or they can only be searched in the severely limited "Snippet View".
Now, there are good reasons why this is the case. The books copyrighted, and the rightsholders do not want to give their most important goods away for free to anyone on the internet. However, given Google's support for Wikipedia, and for the open dissemination of knowledge, could Wikipedia Library perhaps approach Google and request a much more limited arrangement, like the ones it has with various journals?
Full access to all books in the Google Books Library Project would be utopic. But even a limited deal where a short range of pages can be requested for each book would be extremely helpful, because page numbers are specified countless references on Wikipedia via the {{cite book}} template - we just do not have a way to easily get those pages. Yet.
Thank you,
Anders Feder