aid: wikisource name: Wikisource description: >- Wikisource is the Wikimedia Foundation's free library of source texts — public-domain and freely-licensed books, historical documents, legal texts, constitutions, speeches, and other transcribed primary-source works in over 70 languages. The platform exposes its content through the same API surfaces as all MediaWiki installations: the MediaWiki Action API (action=query|parse|edit at /w/api.php), the MediaWiki Core REST API (/w/rest.php/v1/ for page CRUD, search, history, and transforms), and the legacy Wikimedia REST API v1 (/api/rest_v1/ for cached reads at up to 200 RPS). All APIs are free at point of use and governed by the Wikimedia API usage guidelines — a contactable User-Agent is mandatory and serial requests are preferred over parallel bursts. url: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Wikisource image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/120px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png specificationVersion: '0.19' created: '2026-06-13' modified: '2026-06-13' x-type: opensource x-category: Open Data x-tier: 2 x-tier-reason: Sister Wikimedia project; free public-domain text library with full MediaWiki API surface tags: - Open Data - Open Knowledge - Literature - Historical Documents - Public Domain - Transcription - Primary Sources - Non-Profit - Open Source apis: - name: MediaWiki Action API description: >- The primary programmatic interface to Wikisource, exposed at /w/api.php on each language subdomain. Operations are dispatched via the action= parameter (query, parse, edit, upload, login, patrol, ...). Key for reading transcribed texts, searching categories, and editing or proofread-status updating. JSON is the recommended response format. Requests must carry a contactable User-Agent header. humanURL: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page baseURL: https://en.wikisource.org/w/api.php tags: - Action API - Read - Write - Edit - Search - Parse properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page - type: Sandbox url: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox - type: Tutorials url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Tutorial - type: Etiquette url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Etiquette - name: MediaWiki Core REST API description: >- Modern REST surface available on Wikisource at /w/rest.php/v1/. Provides page reads (source, HTML, bare metadata), full-text search, file metadata, page history, revision retrieval and comparison, and wikitext-to-HTML / HTML-to-wikitext transforms. Well-suited for integrations that need standard HTTP verbs rather than the action= dispatch style. humanURL: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:REST_API baseURL: https://en.wikisource.org/w/rest.php/v1 tags: - REST API - Core - Pages - Search - History - Transforms properties: - type: Documentation url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:REST_API/Reference - type: Sandbox url: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Special:RestSandbox - type: APIPortal url: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Core_REST_API - name: Wikimedia REST API v1 description: >- Caching-optimised read API available at /api/rest_v1/ on each Wikisource language subdomain. Provides page summaries, full HTML, media lists, and language links for Wikisource pages. Backed by Varnish CDN; anonymous read traffic is limited to approximately 200 requests per second per client. Provide a contactable User-Agent; GET is preferred for cacheability. humanURL: https://en.wikisource.org/api/rest_v1/ baseURL: https://en.wikisource.org/api/rest_v1 tags: - REST API - Cached - Summaries - HTML - Read properties: - type: Documentation url: https://en.wikisource.org/api/rest_v1/ - type: Specification url: https://en.wikisource.org/api/rest_v1/?spec common: - type: Website url: https://wikisource.org - type: Website title: English Wikisource url: https://en.wikisource.org - type: Documentation url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page - type: APIPortal url: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - type: APICatalog url: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/API_catalog - type: Foundation url: https://wikimediafoundation.org/ - type: Governance url: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation - type: License url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ title: CC BY-SA 4.0 (text content) - type: Policy url: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Wikimedia_Foundation_API_Usage_Guidelines title: API Usage Guidelines - type: Policy url: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Etiquette title: API Etiquette - type: TermsOfService url: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Terms_of_Use - type: GitHubOrganization url: https://github.com/wikimedia - type: SourceCode url: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/ title: Wikimedia Gerrit (canonical source) - type: Status url: https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ - type: BulkDownload url: https://dumps.wikimedia.org/ title: Wikimedia Database Dumps (includes Wikisource) - type: Plans url: plans/wikisource-plans-pricing.yml - type: RateLimits url: rate-limits/wikisource-rate-limits.yml - type: FinOps url: finops/wikisource-finops.yml features: - name: 70+ Language Editions description: Wikisource operates in over 70 language editions; each subdomain ({lang}.wikisource.org) exposes the full MediaWiki API surface at the same paths. - name: Public-Domain Source Texts description: Hosts transcribed books, legal texts, constitutions, speeches, and historical documents no longer under copyright — all freely accessible via the API. - name: Proofread Page Extension description: Wikisource uses the ProofreadPage MediaWiki extension; its status levels (without text, not proofread, problematic, proofread, validated) are queryable via the Action API. - name: Wikitext-to-HTML Transforms description: Convert raw wikitext (including Wikisource templates and page-scan transclusions) to rendered HTML via /transform/wikitext/to/html/{title}. - name: Cached Anonymous Reads at 200 RPS description: The REST API v1 layer is Varnish-cached, supporting anonymous read bursts up to ~200 requests/s per client without authentication. - name: OAuth 2.0 Write Access description: Page edits and proofread-status updates authenticate via OAuth 2.0 tokens issued at meta.wikimedia.org — the same mechanism across all Wikimedia projects. - name: Bulk Text Dumps description: Full periodic XML dumps of every Wikisource language edition are available at dumps.wikimedia.org for offline corpus processing. useCases: - name: Digitised Literature and Corpus Research description: Access transcribed works of literature, philosophy, and science for NLP corpus building, stylometric analysis, or training data curation. - name: Legal and Historical Document Retrieval description: Retrieve constitutions, treaties, legislation, and court opinions as structured wikitext or rendered HTML for legal research platforms. - name: AI Grounding with Primary Sources description: Ground LLM responses with primary-source citations rather than encyclopedic summaries — page summaries and full HTML available via the REST API. - name: Multilingual Text Collection description: Pull source texts across 70+ language editions for multilingual NLP models, translation studies, or cross-lingual information retrieval. - name: Proofread Status Monitoring description: Query and update ProofreadPage statuses to build community dashboards or automated quality-assurance workflows for text digitisation projects. - name: Offline Reading Applications description: Consume periodic bulk dumps to ship offline-readable collections of public-domain literature to schools and low-connectivity environments. integrations: - name: Wikipedia description: Wikipedia articles often link to Wikisource for full-text versions of cited primary sources via interwiki links. - name: Wikidata description: Wikisource works are described as Wikidata items (edition type Q3331189); author pages link to Wikidata QIDs for authority control. - name: Wikimedia Commons description: Page-scan images underlying the ProofreadPage workflow are hosted on Commons and accessed via the Commons Action API. - name: Internet Archive description: Many Wikisource digitisation projects use scans sourced from the Internet Archive's Open Library collection. solutions: - name: Free Public-Domain Text Library description: A non-profit, volunteer-curated repository of transcribed source texts funded by the Wikimedia Foundation — freely readable and downloadable with no API keys required. maintainers: - FN: Kin Lane email: kin@apievangelist.com