Open-content textbook and instructional book website from Wikimedia

Wikibooks

Wikibooks is a popular Wikimedia reference and education website for collaboratively writing, editing, and reading open-content textbooks, manuals, guides, and instructional books.

Core use

Wikibooks helps people read, write, improve, and reuse open-content textbooks and book-like instructional materials.

Wikimedia project

Wikibooks is part of the Wikimedia family and uses collaborative wiki editing.

Content focus

The site is for textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, manuals, and similar learning materials, not general encyclopedia articles.

Wikibooks is a Wikimedia website for open-content textbooks and instructional books.View image on original site

What Wikibooks is

Wikibooks is a free, collaboratively edited website for open-content textbooks and instructional books. On Wikibooks, readers can browse learning materials, while contributors can write, revise, organize, and improve textbooks, manuals, study guides, annotated texts, and other book-like educational resources.

Open textbooks and guides

The project is centered on books that teach. A Wikibooks page may be part of a textbook, manual, cookbook, study guide, annotated reading text, or practical instructional series. The goal is not just to define a topic but to help someone learn it step by step.

Collaborative book building

Like other Wikimedia projects, Wikibooks relies on volunteers editing pages together. Contributors can create chapters, improve explanations, fix examples, reorganize lessons, add references, and discuss changes so a book can grow over time instead of remaining a fixed file.

What belongs there

Wikibooks is meant for textbooks, textbook-like works, manuals, annotated texts, and instructional guides. It is not intended to replace Wikipedia articles, Wikisource source texts, dictionary entries, news reports, personal essays, or general web hosting.

Learning across languages

Wikibooks has multiple language editions, and each one develops its own book collection and community priorities. Coverage can differ widely by language, with some editions emphasizing school subjects, computing, cooking, language learning, or practical skills.

Why it matters

Wikibooks matters because textbooks and learning guides are expensive, unevenly available, and often hard to adapt. An open collaborative book project can make educational material easier to access, revise, translate, and reuse.

Limits and cautions

A Wikibooks title can be incomplete, uneven, outdated, or still under active development. Readers should check page history, references, book structure, completeness, and discussion pages before relying on a work for formal study or teaching.

WHOIS domain data

Data pulled: May 20, 2026View current WHOIS record

Domain: wikibooks.org
IP address: 208.80.154.224
Registrar: MarkMonitor Inc.
WHOIS server: whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
Created: July 19, 2003
Updated: June 17, 2025
Expires: July 19, 2026
Nameservers: ns0.wikimedia.org (208.80.154.238); ns1.wikimedia.org (208.80.153.231); ns2.wikimedia.org (198.35.27.27)
Domain status: clientDeleteProhibited; clientTransferProhibited; clientUpdateProhibited
Registrant contact: Organization is listed as Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.; address country is listed as US; contact email is provided through MarkMonitor's request form.

Key concepts

Open-content textbookA learning book that can be read, edited, shared, and reused under open licensing terms.
Instructional guideA structured learning resource that teaches a process, subject, skill, or practice.
Collaborative editingA wiki workflow where volunteers improve chapters, examples, organization, and references over time.

Website features

Book collectionsBrowse textbooks and instructional resources by subject, title, reading level, and project area.
Chapter editingImprove sections, chapters, examples, formatting, and navigation inside open books.
Wikimedia linksConnect learning books with related encyclopedia articles, source texts, media files, dictionary entries, and quotes.

Common misconceptions

Not WikipediaWikibooks is for book-like learning material, while Wikipedia is for encyclopedia articles.
Not a file dumpThe site is meant for collaboratively developed instructional works, not random uploads or personal web pages.
Open does not mean finishedA book can be freely available but still incomplete, outdated, or in need of editing.

Open questions

Quality controlHow can open textbook projects make completeness, review status, and reading level obvious to learners?
ReuseHow can schools and self-learners adapt open books while preserving attribution and version clarity?
MaintenanceHow should volunteer communities keep technical, legal, and scientific textbooks current as fields change?