Wikisource Reader app is a free and open-source mobile application built for Android users to read public domain and copyright free pre-published contents in various languages of the world, which are hosted in the open and free digital library website of Wikisource. The digitized contents on Wikisoruce are transcribed and proofread by a vibrant community to make them freely and openly accessible and searchable for everyone to read. Wikisource Reader App is a step further to make these contents available for android mobile users.
Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) was approached to support the development of the app by September 2024, which sponsored the early development of the app until March 2025. The app has been developed by Sai Phanindra and Bodhisattwa from the start and they continue to work in their volunteer capacity, since March 2025. CIS is hosting the app on Google Play store. Special thanks to Tanveer Hasan A. K., the Executive Director of CIS, who had actively supported the development of the app.
The app displays public domain and copyright free texts which are available on Wikisource. But the Wikisource community has to follow certain steps on Wikimedia websites to have the contents displayed in the app.
An API was developed to serve as a catalogue or index of books which follow the above mentioned bibliographical data model. Initially it contained works from English, French, and Bangla languages since they were already following the data model, but later support for other languages has been added. The API was built using Django and deployed on Toolforge. It periodically runs a set of SPARQL queries to retrieve data, process that data and update the database. The source code can be found here
The app can support books written in any languages, however, in order to be displayed in the app, it is important that the descriptive metadata follow the above mentioned steps. After fullfiling above mentioned criteria, addition of new languages can be requested here.
The languages which are currently supported in the app are Assamese, Bangla, Catalan, Czech, Danish, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Javanese, Marathi, Malay, Polish, Punjabi, Sundanese, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
The thumbnails can be generated in either of the following two ways.
The books are categorized based on their literary forms which are stored on Wikidata. The literary forms, which are available for categorization in the apps are
It is important that the Wikidata statements for the literary forms are stored in the items for literary works and not in the items for version, edition or translation as compliant with the Wikidata's bibliographic data model
The books are displayed in EPUB format, a popular e-book format designed for book readers. The files are generated through WS-Export tool. Issues related to EPUB file generation can be reported Wikimedia Phabricator.
The interface of the app is built upon Myne app developed by Shivam. Readium mobile by The European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab) is used for the actual reading experience in the Wikisource reader app.
There are several features in this app, which can give quality experience to the readers.