Joining forces with the Founder of the Wikipedia Library

• 2 min read

It’s a big day for us, Jake Orlowitz is joining the project to help us grow awareness and usage of our tools while deepening our relationship with the library community.

A photo of Jake speaking at IFLA.

Jake has been prolific as a builder, strategist, and author working to advance Open Access, in partnership with libraries. As founder of the Wikipedia Library, he built and led a team that provided free access for Wikipedia editors to 100 thousand scholarly journals, to make the world's 5th most popular website more reliable.

Jake also led efforts at the intersection of Open Access, libraries, and Wikipedia as a senior staff member at Wikimedia (the non-profit behind Wikipedia). He built OAbot, which upgraded references on Wikipedia with Open Access versions. Jake started the #1Lib1Ref campaign, which leveraged years of work connecting the library community and Wikipedia, to create a viral effort adding references to the world’s Encyclopedia.

Here's Jake on joining forces:

"There aren't many organizations that align deep values with world-class products. I'm captivated by Open Access Button's ethos of 'powerfully simple' tools that save libraries time and money while shifting the world towards open. I think more people need to know about InstantILL and Shareyourpaper.org because they are effective, seamless services. I'm so excited to share my knowledge to help Open Access Button reach many more people and institutions.

Jake is also an accomplished writer, having published compelling works including, "You're a Researcher Without a Library: What Do You Do?", “Welcome the Circle” -- a book exploring mental health, 17 Myths about Being a Good Ally” and “The Mountains are Burning: My Fire Diary” a blog about the California Fires that was cited by the New York Times. He loves to tell stories, and that's a big part of what he's going to help us do.

It’s rare we find people whose work and spirit so closely align with our own, and so we’re thrilled to work with Jake and leverage his experience, expertise, and ethos.

You can get in touch with Jake at team@openaccessbutton.org, or at @JakeOrlowitz.

Thank you to the Arcadia fund, and Libraries for supporting our work.