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PediaPress Lets You Publish Books from Wikipedia Entries

by Ben Deitz on May 8, 2010 at 11:00 AM

Wikipedia gaming books
Who says print is dead? In an inspired move sure to make reading Simpsons trivia feel more scholarly, Wikipedia, along with publishing partner PediaPress, is letting users create custom books from Wikipedia's enormous wealth of articles.

The service is now built directly into Wikipedia via the "create a book" link featured on the sidebar of all Wikipedia articles. After starting the book creator, an additional header will appear above all Wikipedia articles that lets users add any entries to their custom book. You'll be able to easily assemble that tome you've always wanted that mixes the first season of the 'G.I. Joe' cartoon with Euclidean Geometry.

The service will also suggest related articles to users before they complete the book, and allows users rearrange its contents in any way they prefer, including grouping related articles within chapters. Finally, users can customize the cover of their book before sending it off to the printer.

We like to spend a lot of our Web time perusing Wikipedia in search of the sort of esoteric pop culture facts that are hard to find in print, and a service like this really leaves us salivating. The bottom line is that nothing beats actually having a physical copy of something to read, and combing that with the immense amount of abstruse (but genuinely useful) knowledge available on Wikipedia is an ingenious innovation. [From: Mashable]

Tags: books, custom book, CustomBook, pediapress, print, publishing, web, wikipedia

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