Last week, Jimmy Wales appeared at a press conference with the head of the firm that produces the Brockhaus encyclopedia. The meeting was basically a polite exchange of ideas and builds on previous contacts between the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation and Brockhaus.
The conference featured a discussion between Wales and Alexander Bob, CEO of the Bibliographisches Institute & F.A. Brockhaus AG, publisher of the leading German encyclopedia. Also present was Klaus Holoch, press spokesperson for Brockhaus. The event was sponsored by Wissenschafts-Pressekonferenz e.V. and held last Wednesday at the offices of the Axel Springer publishing house in Hamburg.
The discussion was moderated by Marcus Franken, a journalist and member of the sponsoring organization. About 20 other journalists were present, as was Ralf Szymanski, the head of Directmedia Publishing, which recently released the German Wikipedia on DVD (see archived story).