Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library

British Newspaper Archive is now available (again)

I'm pleased to let you know that British Newspaper Archive is now available once again in the library! BNA now have a proxy configuration that we were able to use, and so access is available immediately for anyone eligible to use The Wikipedia Library. The only caveat to be aware of is that you need to register an account to access content on the site, even though you're accessing via proxy. You'll be prompted to do this, I just wanted to give folks a heads up. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 15:55, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Splendid news, thank you @Samwalton9 (WMF). Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:10, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Outstanding. Nick Number (talk) 17:56, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Fantastic. Thank you for making this happen! --Usernameunique (talk) 22:51, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Samwalton9 (WMF) - I'm not sure how to access BNA as I have had a paid account in the past and my email address (I only have one) will probably conflict. Do I sign in, register or subscribe? These are the options when I click on the BNA in the WP Library. Thanks, T. Tony Holkham (Talk) 10:55, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

It's OK, I signed in with my old details and it now tells me I have free access. Brilliant, thanks again. Tony Holkham (Talk) 10:59, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Samwalton9 (WMF) - thank you! Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 02:58, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Awesome news for end of year 2025, thank you!—Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 03:02, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you very much! Mapple (talk) 11:33, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. Great. TrottieTrue (talk) 23:26, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Is this actually working? Every page I go to on https://www-britishnewspaperarchive-co-uk.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/, I just get the "But first, cookies..." dialog. I keep clicking "Accept all", but it doesn't appear to matter. RoySmith (talk) 13:50, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

There are frequent cookie notifications, but the site does seem to work for me. I had difficulties originally because the autofill password kept refusing to let me login. TrottieTrue (talk) 17:42, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

I've noticed that JSTOR also keeps nagging me about cookies. I wonder if the oclc proxy URL rewriting confuses the cookie domain matching rules? RoySmith (talk) 17:45, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

@TrottieTrue I also have password problems after registering. It seems like you surpassed it though? Geschichte (talk) 13:38, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Basically, the stored password on my device wasn’t for my BNA account, but instead it was probably the one I used when TWL previously had access to the BNA. This password was rejected by the BNA via TWL, when my password for the separate BNA site did work. Bottom line: try resetting your password, and check that autocomplete isn’t putting in the wrong password. TrottieTrue (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I can't get into the archive. Seems to be blocking again. Anna (talk) 17:52, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Works for me. TrottieTrue (talk) 21:33, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

To Samwalton9 (WMF) and all the others who helped get this going again, thanks again for doing so! It's been really valuable the last couple of months—a number of the articles I've been working on recently wouldn't have been possible without it. --Usernameunique (talk) 02:28, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Odd, very limited results on main search

Apologies if this has been widely discussed before but I am confused about how the library search function works. If I use the search box on the main library home page I get many fewer hits than if I go into one of the archives - I supposedly have 87 to search in. For example, If I search for the word (place) "Ballinafad" in on the main page search it responds with 54 results. If I go into only the Jstor page (one of the 87 archives available) I get 70 results for the same word. Going into Proquest (via the Library) a search yields 1461 results. I have found the same thing for years. Am I missing something? Is there a glitch? You would surely think that the main page box that says "search the library" would give the most results - an aggregation of all the archives. I really appreciate accesss to the archives via WP, but the general search function does not seem to work. I don't know which archives to search in for the results I want. Please advise. Anna (talk) 16:12, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Nice timing: I just asked exactly this same question at meta:Talk:The Wikipedia Library#Federated search? RoySmith (talk) 16:15, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

The main search box is an EBSCO search. I believe it is more powerful than the search within the EBSCO collection because it searches more EBSCO databases than the library subscribes to (maybe all). It also provides convenience links to full text in selected other collections (JSTOR, for example) if EBSCO has indexed an article but doesn't have the full text. This design is common in libraries. It is convenient if speed is more important than completeness, but if you want to search all collections, you need to open and search each one separately (up to 122 at present). It definitely pays to be familiar enough with the collections to know, for a given topic, which ones to search and which not to bother with. --Worldbruce (talk) 15:27, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

"The main search box is an EBSCO search. I believe it is more powerful than the search within the EBSCO collection because it searches more EBSCO databases". I agree with the theory but it doesn't seem to work. (See my comment above).Anna (talk) 15:42, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

How does your first comment contradict what I wrote? Did you get more results searching the EBSCO collection than searching using the main page box? --Worldbruce (talk) 17:06, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

I use the Wikipedia library a lot but I gave up on the EBSCO search long ago. At least for the kinds of sources I am interested Google Scholar and a search in a particular collection by title is faster and more certain. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:31, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

The main seach box hasn't worked properly for many years. Anna (talk) 20:34, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Another example of the main search not working. Gale biography has a full record on Dr Jennifer Owen as accessed through the Gale Biography library portal only. Using the main search doesn't show the Gale Jennifer Owen biography. So the search function is pretty useless unless you know exactly which portal to look in or look in them all. Doesn't this bother anyone? Anna (talk) 17:19, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree that the "Search the library" feature should be removed. It fails to achieve even a minimal goal one expects for a search. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

I also think it should be removed. Based on the discussion here, it's clear that it does not do what it appears it would, so it's just a trap for the unwary. RoySmith (talk) 21:41, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Perplexity Pro seats

On January 15, Perplexity published a blog post "Happy 25th Birthday, Wikipedia", which said:

To celebrate Wikipedia's birthday, we're offering a gift of 2,500 Perplexity Enterprise seats to share with Wikipedia editors.

But I can't find any information on how to sign up for these seats. I've searched the wikipedia / wikimedia / wmflabs sites and the Perplexity site and haven't found anything. I'd have thought that the Perplexity seats would be made available via the Collections feature of Wikipedia Library, but I don't see anything there.

What is the procedure for signing up for one of those seats?

Thanks, --Macrakis (talk) 12:18, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Just for fun I asked perplexity I am a wikipedia editor. I was excited to read about your gift of 2,500 Perplexity Enterprise seats to share with Wikipedia editors. How do I sign up? Unfortunately, I can't share the chat here because the URL is on the blacklist :-) RoySmith (talk) 16:06, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

I got a reply from "Sam, AI Support agent for Perplexity" which promised that they'd get back to me. We'll see.... --Macrakis (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

The TWL team isn't familiar with this offer - we're going to learn more and will get back to you! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:04, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

"Sam, AI Support agent for Perplexity" wrote me on Friday:

I'm connecting you with our Enterprise team who can help you with the Wikipedia editor seats program mentioned in our blog post. They'll be able to provide you with information on how to sign up for one of the 2,500 Enterprise seats being offered to Wikipedia editors.

Apparently "Sam" is the agentic gatekeeper for Perplexity Enterprise queries. So you might try writing to enterprise@perplexity.ai.

Wikimedia Enterprise already has a relationship with Perplexity going in the other direction (supplying data to them); see this Talk. This seems to be led by @LWyatt (WMF):; I wonder if he can help? --Macrakis (talk) 22:55, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Macrakis, thanks for the ping. This isn't specifically "led" by me - but I can nevertheless confirm that my colleagues are looking into it (options being a more case-by-case basis which is faster in the short term, or a more self-service process which takes a bit more time to set up). We'll be back to you shortly. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 10:36, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

@User:LWyatt (WMF), I'd be happy to be a beta tester of whatever you and Perplexity come up with if that helps. I'm an experienced Wikipedia editor and a longtime software guy (so I know how to write a bug report!). --Macrakis (talk) 18:08, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Perplexity Enterprise support says that Eloisa Granado is their POC at Wikimedia Foundation and is onboarding Editors on this initiative. Are you in touch with her? Thanks, --Macrakis (talk) 16:56, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

How do I cite sources from TWL?

The only citation websites it gives me is the original TWL source. VidanaliK (talk to me) (contributions) 20:26, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Please provide more information. What citation? What citation websites? Which "original TWL source"?

The concept of citing sources "from TWL" does not make sense to me. TWL does not publish sources, so how can you cite from it? Johnjbarton (talk) 20:53, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

TWL does not publish sources, so how can you cite from it? That's exactly my question. How do I get the citation from the original source on TWL? It's good for getting the content of a source, but if I want to cite it I need a URL. Where would I get that? VidanaliK (talk to me) (contributions) 20:55, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I use WP:ProveIt in the WP:source editor. I copy the DOI or the DOI URL, widely available for journals and books, and paste into the Generate box in the tool. It creates a {{cite}} reference and then I press "Insert". DOI also works in https://citer.toolforge.org/. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:28, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

You don't always need a URL to cite a source. If you're reading a journal article, the DOI number might be shown--try that; if you're reading a book with an ISBN number, that's a good thing to try. Otherwise, or if those don't work, you can refer to it the old-fashioned way, typing out the author, title, year, publisher, page, or whatever other combination of details work for the format you're citing. A URL is helpful but not required.Penny Richards (talk) 21:00, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

You can remove the Wikipedia proxy part of the URL. For example, https://www-science-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/ can be converted to just https://www.science.org/. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:46, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Lots "temporarily unavailable"

Following are "temporarily unavailable" at 16:00 UTC 27 March 2026:

• American National Biography
• Annual Reviews
• Electronic Enlightenment
• NewspaperARCHIVE.com
• OECD Data
• OECD iLibrary
• Oxford Academic
• Oxford Art Online
• Oxford Bibliographies
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Grove Music Online
• Oxford Reference
• Oxford Research Encyclopedias

DuncanHill (talk) 16:06, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

It has been almost two months Hu741f4 (talk) 04:50, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Re: Times of Malta access details

Are there any updates regarding the access to the Times of Malta? Since the last discussion, I haven't received any information regarding access details. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 08:40, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

NewspaperArchive.com

Recently, NewspaperArchive.com was completely unavailable for weeks due to a ransomware attack. Now, the site has returned to normal operation, but our access still does not work. I'm sure the team at Storied has their hands full, dealing with the fallout of their long-term site outage, but is there anything we can do to make sure Institutional Access doesn't get lost in the shuffle? -Reschultzed (talk) 21:37, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

We're reaching out to them about this, hopefully we can get our access back before long! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:43, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Where is Wiki project that will buy a book for an article?

Hi. A year ago I needed a book for my work on English wikipedia (the Bridge article) ... I applied for the book somewhere in the WikiMedia universe, and the book was purchased and sent to me. I successfully promoted the article to Featured Article status. I'm starting to work on a new article, and want to go through a similar process, but I cannot recall where I went to apply for a book purchase. Can someone point me in the right direction for the application form? I cannot even remember if it was within English WP or within WikiMedia. My edit history is too large for me to search and find the edits where I filled-out the application. Noleander (talk) 17:27, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Hi, it was probably Wikipedia:Resource support pilot. the wub "?!" 17:31, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Resource support pilot RoySmith (talk) 17:31, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

You're a rock star ... that's the place! Noleander (talk) 17:36, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

DOI redirect feature suggestion

My typical workflow with TWL library is something like this:

1. Spot a curious claim, open the corresponding citation
2. Find the work title and publisher by one of
   1. Get lucky and find a DOI link, click it into a new tab, or
   2. Select the work's title and open Google Scholar
   3. Search on web
3. If a TWL publisher, remember the publisher name, copy the work title.
4. Open a new tab for TWL
5. Scroll and select the publisher access button
6. Navigate to the "Title" form input (advanced search) feature for the publisher
7. Paste the work title, click the search button.
8. Get lucky and find the source.

Needless to say this gets tedious upon repetition. Notice that at step 8 I am in the same position as step 2. The only thing that I accomplished in 3-8 was becoming authenticated as TWL. The remaining steps are pure busy work required because the original DOI link is not authenticated. Is there a way for the TWL page to take a DOI and open the redirect target as an authenticated user? It seems like something relatively unsophisticated like rewriting the DOI-result-URL with with oclc.org prefix might work. With this server feature and a DOI URL param, a UI feature could allow authenticated editors direct access to the DOI-target source. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:02, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

I use this browser extension. If you add the TWL proxy URL under "Configured Proxies", any URL to a site which TWL has access to should automatically redirect to the proxy version. For example, when I click on doi:10.1515/9783110975512 or JSTOR 637606, I'm immediately logged in. – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:34, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Sounds promising. The extension is "Zotero Connector"? Chrome> ... menu> Extensions> Manage Extensions>Zotero Connector and I am stuck: where to set the proxy value and what value to use? Johnjbarton (talk) 03:57, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that's the one. Go back to the point before you clicked "Manage Extensions", and click on the three dots next to the extension and select "Options". Then click "Proxies" in the left panel. In the entry under "Configured Proxies", I have "Login URL Scheme" set to "https://login.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=%u" and "Proxied URL Scheme" set to "https://%h.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/%p". I also have "Automatically associate new hosts" ticked. Let me know if that works. If I remember correctly, you need to click something the first time you use it for a particular website, but after that it should work without a hitch. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:12, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I found the funky puzzle-piece icon has the extensions with the three dot menu. Later I found the "Extension options" under the Manage Extension path.

And the feature started to work for Springer. It's weird because I tried a few times with no effect, then it started working.

But for Elsevier it does not work, eg https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2021.10.001 Johnjbarton (talk) 01:25, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

You should also be able to manually have Zotero redirect you. Try right clicking the Zotero icon, then click on "Reload via proxy" (or something similar). It'll then attempt to send you to the proxy'd version. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 01:59, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, but where is "the Zotero icon"? Johnjbarton (talk) 02:08, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

At the top right of your browser, next to the search bar. You might have to click the puzzle piece to see it. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 02:12, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

If it is under the puzzle icon, click on the three dots for Zotero instead of right clicking. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 02:16, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, you get to "Reload via proxy" using the three dots in the puzzle piece drop-down. You can also do it by clicking on the URL under "Configured Proxies" and then manually adding "www.sciencedirect.com" to the list of hostnames. – Michael Aurel (talk) 02:20, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Ok, to see the Zotero icon I need to click the pushpin icon in the Zotero row under the puzzle piece icon.

The tool is very mysterious. For both Springer and Elsevier it failed a couple of time, then twice it put up a bright yellow bar, then is started to work. (It does no help that Chrome is also mysterious with two independent paths with different text to get to extension options).

Thanks for the help! I added Wikipedia:Citing_sources_with_Zotero#Zotero_as_a_proxy_for_The_Wikipedia_Library. Please review Johnjbarton (talk) 22:51, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm still trying to get my head around all this, but it sounds like a big time saver. My personal annoyance is dealing with jstor. My typical workflow is to click on some link that ends in .../stable/xxxx and have that hit jstor's paywall, so I open another window, type "jst", have it auto-complete that to jstor.org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org, and then I copy-paste the /stable/xxxx stuff onto the end of that (modulo some details I might have gotten wrong). Will this solve that problem as well? RoySmith (talk) 23:10, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, if you have Zotero, all jstor.org links will automatically redirect you to the jstor.org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org equivalent (assuming it is properly set up). You can also use the Zotero extension to visit the proxy'd version of whatever website you're on by right clicking on it and selecting reload via proxy, instead of having to type in the full proxy and copy the identifying part. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 23:16, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Awesome. TIL lots of important stuff. RoySmith (talk) 23:21, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

No worries. A section at that page seems a good idea to me. As long as you've found the "Reload via proxy" button, you hopefully won't need to experience it failing multiple times for future websites; click that button straight away if it doesn't work, and it should happen automatically from there. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:28, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

This isn't working for me. I have the extension installed. I configured the options to use:

• https://login.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=%u
• https://%h.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/%p

as described above. But if I click on https://www.jstor.org/stable/637606 I don't get redirected; I just get left at that URL with a " Have library access? Log in through your library" message at the top. RoySmith (talk) 00:00, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I think you have to visit the proxy'd version first, so it knows you have access. Try clicking on this link: https://www-jstor-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/. There should be a yellow thing at the top letting you know it detected it. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 00:04, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Ah, that did indeed work. But what a strange way to do things. It looks like I need to do that for each service; I just did so for Project Muse. That seems, um, strange? RoySmith (talk) 00:11, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

This is the same thing that confused Johnjbarton above, I think. Rather than clicking on a separate proxy'd link for each website you want to access or retrying it until it works, you should be able to visit each one logged out and then click "Reload via wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org" (I've added a sentence to Wikipedia:Citing sources with Zotero#Zotero as a proxy for The Wikipedia Library explaining how to find this button). – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:26, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

The reload via is my preferred way of using it. It's also helpful when you have more than one possible proxy, for example from your local library system or university. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 00:40, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

There's a Firefox extension that loads access links next to any DOI: ScholarKey ꧁Zanahary꧂ 15:40, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

EZProxy tripped

While trying to access any collection in the library, all that appears is a this text: "You have tripped an automated security rule in EZProxy. Common reasons for this might be trying to download too many items in a short period of time or using a web proxy. Please contact the Wikipedia Library team at wikipedialibrary@wikimedia.org so this block can be reviewed." I have sent an email but have gotten no response. Shacharrz (talk) 11:35, 24 April 2026 (UTC)