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German Wikipedia tome to be published

Jess Smee

Listing of up to 90,000 contributors

Berlin: Sometimes a book spine just is not long enough — especially when its list of authors runs to 90,000. Due to hit the shelves in September, a published encyclopaedia of German Wikipedia entries, the first of its kind, will list in a single volume the 50,000 most commonly searched terms on the German Wikipedia website over the past two years.

That means Carla Bruni, Playstation3 or trivia about U.S. television series House, starring British actor Hugh Laurie, have earned their place among more typical encyclopaedia fodder such as politics and geography.

The Wikipedia Lexikon has turned into something of “a document of the zeitgeist,” said Beate Varnhorn, a director at its publisher Bertelsmann Lexicon.

All entries, which include high-profile events such as the 2007 G8 summit in Heiligendamm, have been shortened and checked factually. Dotted with images and photographs, its creators aim to reach people who do not use Wikipedia online.

Each Wikipedia entry has a number of contributors, who tweak and add to the information left by other site users, which means an unprecedented list of authors, Mr. Varnhorn said. The extensive list of contributors, compressed and separated by commas, will stretch over 30 pages of the 1,000-page tome.

Reversal of trend

With a price tag of €19.95, €1 from every Wikipedia Lexikon sold will be given to the German chapter of Wikimedia, the group behind Wikipedia, for the use of its name.

The publication reverses the industry trend towards the internet and away from traditional print. Earlier this year, Brockhaus Encyclopedia, the German equivalent of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, announced plans to make its 30-volume leather-bound set accessible online.

Publishers of the Wikipedia Lexikon insist it is too soon to say farewell to the book format. “Unlike Brockhaus, we think the market for print reference books remains positive,” said Mr. Varnhorn. “The book is highly flexible, I can use it on the sofa while watching television, at the desk, in the garden or in bed, without having to turn on the computer.”

German Wikipedia, Germany’s sixth-most-visited website, is the second largest in size after its English-version equivalent. It has been estimated it would take at least 750 thick volumes to print all the articles in the English-language version.

The sheer size of the articles on German Wikipedia site proved too daunting for a publisher who planned to convert it into print.

“It turned out that even on very thin paper, the German Wikipedia would fill a shelving unit,” said the director of Wikipedia Germany. “In the end it didn’t happen.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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