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Technology report

A new way to read Wikisource

New android app for Wikisource

The Wikisource reader app is now available for reading Wikisource books through mobile devices. Android users may get the app through the Google Play app store. For a book to be accessible through the app, it must comply with the data model at Wikidata:WikiProject Books, and have a Wikidata item which uses the Wikidata property Wikisource index page URL (P1957) to link a Wikisource book which the editorial community has certified as passing the proofreading and validation process. Currently the app supports 22 languages, Assamese, Bangla, Catalan, Czech, Danish, English, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Javanese, Marathi, Malay, Polish, Punjabi, Spanish, Sundanese, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. Wikisource editing has been especially popular in Bangla language and throughout India.

The lead developer of the app is Sai Phanindra, user:Saiphani02. Sai edits Wikimedia projects in English and Telugu, and their interests include sharing photos of village life and public transportation in India and developing scripts and bots for Wikimedia editors. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is presenting the app, but the Wikimedia community and other open-source volunteers are now maintaining and managing it. As The Signpost previously reported, in April 2025 the government of India removed governmental permission for that organization to receive funding from foreign organizations such as the Wikimedia Foundation. While Wikimedia programs everywhere routinely have high participation from volunteer community members, it was helpful to have CIS develop the app. From this point, anyone interested in contributing to the app's development may do so through the GitHub repo. Documentation for the app is available at the meta page and the website for the app is cis-india.github.io/wikisource-reader-app/.

As with all things Wikimedia, there are a few technical developers for the platforms, but an endless invitation for everyone else to edit the content which appears in those platforms. Anyone who would like to present books with open copyright in any language version of Wikisource is invited to join Wikisource. Further information is in the announcement at the Wikisource-l mailing list message.

In brief

New user scripts to customise your Wikipedia experience

Latest tech news

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2025 #34, #35, #36, and #37. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.

Installation code

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