Wikisource Loves Manuscript (WiLMa) Philippines program is a response of the PhilWiki Community to a call-to-action to support the digitization of old publications, manuscripts and books around Philippine literature, history and languages through Wikisource.
Wikisource – The Free Library – is a collaborative project aimed at creating a growing free content online library of source texts, which includes not only literary works but also historical documents, academic writings, and various other forms of literature. Additionally, it encompasses translations of these source texts in any language, making it an invaluable resource for multilingual readers and researchers.
This project promotes free access to knowledge, encourages contributions from volunteers, and serves as a repository where users can both share and discover diverse works, thereby enhancing the global literary culture and preserving important texts for future generations.
Wikisource aims to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has expanded to become a general-content library. The project officially began on November 24, 2003, under the name Project Sourceberg, a play on Project Gutenberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name.
The first year of the WiLMa Philippines program was a huge success in making the PhilWiki Community as the first implementer of the WiLMa program outside Indonesia. As a result, the Language Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation approved new Wikisource projects in the Bikol and Tagalog languages in October 2024 and March 2025, respectively.
The PhilWiki Community is actively supporting programs, advocating the preservation of indigenous languages and intangible heritage through the WilMa PH program, in partnership with the Bikol Wikipedia Community, and Nueva Caceres Heritage Movement Inc. (NCHMI).
Museum and library staff, students, and faculty are welcome to the project through a series of engaging seminars. Enriching training sessions and hands-on workshops play a crucial role in ensuring that these texts remain alive and available for future generations, fostering a rich, diverse digital library. Through this introduction, participants can build a strong foundation that will support their ongoing involvement in the project’s vision.
In partnership with museums and libraries, volunteers are bringing rare and out-of-copyright publications into the digital age. Cultural organizations and generous private collectors are lending out-of-print books that have now entered the public domain, making knowledge and history more accessible than ever before. Scanning manuscripts is a meticulous process that involves digitizing historical documents, allowing for preservation and accessibility.
Participants actively engage in transcribing digitized books, empowering themselves while inspiring others to volunteer in the development of Wikisource content.
Spreading the Spirit of Free Knowledge 