Francesco Redi and the #BHL - A purpose for #Wikisource

Mr Redi is of a stature that his statue is in the Uffizi Gallery. His books are available in the Internet Archive, thanks to the Biodiversity Heritage Library.  Wikisourcers waved their magic on several of his books and the result is a superior output for for instance "Esperienze intorno alla generazione degl'insetti".

Mr Redi has four books who received the Wikisource treatment.. and then what? In response to a tweet, I was told of the existence of these books in Wikisource. I checked them on Wikidata and added Mr Redi as the author. There is nothing to indicate in Wikisource where the book came from (the BHL provided them with a DOI).

In a tweet, the BHL indicated that they are interested in books that received the Wikisource treatment. So lets consider where we are:

• Wikisource has many great books transcribed and available as an ebook
• It is not known outside of Wikisource what books are available in what quality and where they came from
• We could have this information in Wikidata. It will give a clue what is available; we can query for the books when they are in Wikidata
• What is the purpose of Wikisource if it is not for people to read all these fine books?

Thanks,

       GerardM