[Foundation-l] Project Proposal: Wikicat

Fri Jul 28 10:10:14 UTC 2006

On 28/07/06, Jonathan Leybovich <jleybov at yahoo.com> wrote:
> All-
>
> I hereby propose for your consideration Wikicat, a
> project to create an open, bibliographic catalog.  The
> purpose of Wikicat is to both lay the groundwork for a
> scholarly apparatus to be used within Wikipedia as
> well as create a unique and valuable information
> resource in its own right.  In particular, Wikicat
> will:
>
> * facilitate the process of citation by automatically
> fetching bibliographic data based upon unique keys
> such as ISBN, ISSN, and LCCN
> * allow users to more easily navigate between
> information resources by grouping them in a
> functionally significant manner (in particular,
> according to the principles of [[w:FRBR]]) so that,
> for example, different editions, translations, etc.
> are all joined together
> * apply Wikipedia's collaborative content creation
> model to bibliographic data, resulting in a catalog of
> unprecedented detail
>
> In terms of implementation, Wikicat will be defined
> like any other [[m:Wikidata]] dataset and will
> integrate with other datasets such as WiktionaryZ to
> share common entities and perhaps someday support
> something along the lines of a Semantic Mediawiki.  As
> Wikidata is currently not code complete, though,
> Wikicat will be deployed in stages, during the first
> of which it will exist as a read-only database that
> populates itself on an as-needed/"as-cited" basis by
> importing data from the open catalog servers of such
> institutions as the Library of Congress, the
> University of California library system, the U.S.
> National Library of Medicine, etc.
>
> Details about the project, in increasing technical
> detail, are available on the following pages:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikicat
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicat
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicat_Technical_Design
>
> Coding of the first stage of the project is nearly
> complete and a list of its operational requirements
> will soon be forthcoming.  Here is a demo of Wikicat
> integration with the Cite/<ref> extension:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikicat_Cite_screenshoot.png
>
> Thank you for your time and I look forward to your
> comments.

I'm normally against the creation of new projects, but this sounds
like a pretty good idea. Presumably, it'll be a little like Commons
but instead of images, would handle citations. I suppose other
Wikimedia projects will make use of this, do you hope to allow
non-WikiMedia projects to use it?

The project will aim to catalogue books, news, journals, what else? Film?

How will different referencing styles be handled?
-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)