April 14, 2008

Wikipedia Roundup

I was getting a little behind in my reading and blogging. In order to make a substantial dent, I will make several posts over the next few days (or weeks) that will bring in many thoughts around a specific topic.

Today's topic: Wikipedia

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The battle for Wikipedia's soul
Mar 6th 2008
(From The Economist print edition)

IT IS the biggest encyclopedia in history and the most successful example of “user-generated content” on the internet, with over 9m articles in 250 languages contributed by volunteers collaborating online.

The article discusses the challenges of trying to "encompass every aspect of human knowledge" versus including including everything no matter how "trivial".

Does anyone else think that the restrictions on Wikipedia are getting tighter and tighter than advertised and originally planned?

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Interview of Niko Pfund, Vice President and Publisher of the Academic and Trade division of Oxford University Press in New York
Blog entry on the OUPblog (April 8, 2008)
He was asked if "he hated Wikipedia". He said he was a regular user and appears to think that Wikipedia is helping people to better understand appropriateness of information and its source. He suggested that the development of the Oxford English Dictionary was based on the same method of utilizing the collective knowledge of people.

He does suggest that as Wikipedia's popularity grows it will bring its own end as the "one-stop shopping model will likely fragment".

I do not know of this will happen. We see this in our own library collections that we are pushing more resources to a one-stop approach. Do people really think that we will revert back to having to find information from only a single appropriate source?

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