Wikibooks (previously called Wikimedia Free Textbook Project and Wikimedia-Textbooks) is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit.

In April 2010 Alexa ranked wikibooks.org as the 2462nd most popular web site in the world. Compete.com estimates that Wikibooks had 576838 unique visitors and Quantcast estimates 646500 unique visitors from the United States in that month.23 Contents 1 History 1.1 Wikijunior 2 Book content 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links History

Wikibooks was launched on July 10 2003 in response to a request made by Wikipedia contributor Karl Wick for a project to host and build free textbooks on subjects such as organic chemistry and physics. Two major sub-projects Wikijunior and Wikiversity were created within Wikibooks before its official policy was later changed so that future incubator type projects are started according to the Wikimedia Foundation's new project policy. In August 2006 Wikiversity became an independent Wikimedia Foundation project. Wikijunior

Wikijunior is a subproject of Wikibooks that specializes in books for children. The project consists of both a magazine and a website and is currently being developed in English Danish Finnish French German Italian Japanese and Spanish. It is funded by a grant from the Beck Foundation. Book content

While some books are original others began as text copied over from other sources of free content textbooks found on the Internet. All of the site's content is covered by a Creative Commons license. This means that as with its sister project Wikipedia contributions remain copyrighted to their creators while the copyleft licensing ensures that the content will always remain freely distributable and reproducible.

Wikibooks differs from Wikisource in that content on Wikibooks is expected to be significantly changed by participants. Raw source documents such as the original text of Shakespearean plays are hosted on Wikisource instead.

The project is working towards completion of textbooks on numerous subjects which founders hope will be followed by mainstream adoption and use of textbooks developed and housed there. See also Growth of the eight largest Wikibooks sites (by language) July 2003  Jan 2010 CK-12 Foundation Digital library e-book European Library Free High School Science Texts Global Text ibiblio Open Content Alliance Universal library References "wikibooks.org" Alexa retrieved February 18 2011 "Site Profile for wikibooks.org" compete retrieved June 15 2010 "wikibooks.org" Quantcast retrieved June 15 2010 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010) Further reading Ben Crowell (2005). "All Systems Go: The Newly Emerging Infrastructure to Support Free Books". http://www.lightandmatter.com/article/infrastructure.html. Retrieved June 18 2006.  Michael F. Shaughnessy (2009-07-14). "An Interview with Curtis Bonk: A Look at Wikibooks and Wikibookians". EducationNews.org. http://www.ednews.org/articles/an-interview-with-curtis-bonk-a-look-at-wikibooks-and-wikibookians.html.  External links English Wikibooks' Main Page Wikijunior Main Page Wikibooks' multilingual portal Wikibooks Language Editions: list of Wikibooks for various languages ordered by size. Wikibooks page on Meta-Wiki Wikibooks takes on textbook industry v d eProjects of the Wikimedia Foundation Wikibooks  Wikimedia Commons  Wikinews  Wikipedia  Wikiquote  Wikisource  Wikispecies  Wikiversity  Wiktionary v d eWiki websites Wikipedia  Wikia  TV Tropes  WikiLeaks  Encyclopedia Dramatica  Wiktionary  Uncyclopedia  Wikispecies  Wikisource  Wookieepedia  Memory Alpha  Jurispedia  Conservapedia  Metapedia  Pilkipedia  Stupidedia  SourceWatch  Lostpedia  LyricWiki  wikiHow  Citizendium  WoWWiki  Wikibooks  Wikinews  Wikitravel  Appropedia  Heroes Wiki  Congresspedia