Microgrants/Elections in Europe

Overview

I would like a grant to purchase the book Elections in Europe: A data handbook. This would be used to create missing articles on elections (see here for the set of templates that I am aiming to remove redlinks from) and political parties in Europe, and referencing/enhancing existing articles that are currently unreferenced or lacking in detail.

I have already used the Nohlen books on Africa, Asia/Oceania and the Americas to great effect. I would estimate that using them, I have created many hundreds of articles (possibly over 1,000 - by July I was up to over 1,300 created (some of these were before I got my hands on the books, which I also used to go back and improve those ones) and there is now pretty much a complete set of post-independence elections on every country on those continents with the exception of South America, which I haven't started on yet. The number created and referenced is nearing 1,500 (as suggested by this search, almost all of which are the articles in question).

The books on Africa and Asia (two volumes) were available through the library system, although I had to pay around £5 for each for inter-library loans as it came through the British library. However, whilst the Americas and Europe books are held by the British library, they are not available for loaning, and can only be viewed at the library (which is not practical for me as I do not live in London, and it takes several weeks to go through the different countries). I managed to purchase the Americas books (two volumes) at a bargain price (£30) but the Europe one is not available so cheaply.

Budget

The book is currently retailing at £129.54 (free postage) on Amazon, and I would request a grant to cover this.

Timeline

I would expect to use the book for up to three months to create/expand/reference the election articles. However, it would be good to have it for longer so that I can also create/reference articles on parties contesting the elections (as I have been able to do with the Americas books, but did not have time with the others as they were only month-long loans). As the amount of information in the book is so large, I'd imagine I could continue to use it for even over a year before exhausting the possibilties for referencing/expanding articles.

Expected outcomes

I hope to create a few hundred new articles (currently there are 427 post-1900 redlinks on election templates of independent European countries, which is what I suspect the minimum of the book will cover (for Latin America, election coverage tends to begin in the early 1900s, but for the US and Canada it went much further back, so the number could be greater) and there could be some more elections in the books for which there is no redlink), and the referencing and improvement of hundreds of others. With parties included, the book could held create/improve over 1,000 articles.

Who I am

I am User:Number 57. I'm based in East Anglia, and contribute largely on articles on elections and political parties, as well as football (a full list of my contribution types is on my userpage). I have no experience of microgrants, but saw this advertised as a banner when I logged in earlier today (and have joined Wikimedia UK as a result). I thought it was an excellent opportunity to finally "complete the set" of election articles.

Discussion

Sounds good; I'm happy to approve this. We can either purchase the book directly for you (in which case we'll need your postal address), or reimburse you if you want to buy it directly (in which case we'll need a receipt and the details of how you want us to reimburse you, e.g. by bank transfer or cheque) - please let me know off-wiki which approach you would prefer, and the corresponding details. It will be fine for you to keep hold of the book for as long as it's useful to you for your editing. Thanks. Mike Peel 22:58, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The book's now on order, and will be sent directly to you; I'll let you know when it's on its way to you. We're happy for you to keep hold of the book until you've exhausted it as a reference source; if you could return it to us afterwards that would be good (we'll be happy to cover the cost of postage for you to send it on to us). Mike Peel 21:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

NB: contributions made using this book are being recorded at wikipedia:User:Number 57/Elections in Europe. Mike Peel 16:39, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi User:Number 57 I see that you have been working on these articles recently and was wondering if this grant request needs closing or if you prefer it to leave it open. Please advise. Cheers, Karla Marte(WMUK) (talk) 15:28, 31 August 2016 (BST)