Back in June, I posted an announcement here for a class being taught by Scott Viera at the Johnson County Library, “Wikipedia: Can We Trust It?”
Diana and I attended the class last night and we’re still talking about it this morning! Scott (a reference librarian at the Johnson County Library) is fascinated by Wikipedia and has done a lot of research into its history and structure.
The class was open to the public and my favorite part was listening to people’s questions and comments. Wikipedia is a topic that inspires discussion! Before the class, some people had been unaware that it was a user-created encyclopedia. A school-librarian in the crowd talked about the challenges/opportunities of teaching students information literacy. Some people had been wary of Wikipedia before the class, but left feeling more knowledgeable and confident.
I’m guessing that most of you have searched Wikipedia, but have you explored the site lately? Having 90-minutes to do that in class last night was a treat. Scott pointed out the Help section (lots of good information there) and the community portal.
There’s some excellent stuff on Wikipedia — I’ve been checking out the portals (introductory pages for topics) lately. Have you seen the Poe Portal? … the Cuba Portal?
Where will Wikipedia go next? How will it change? Will it continue to grow (the English language Wikipedia encyclopedia is nearing the 2 million article mark — 1,949,791 articles as I publish this)? What is its place in the information world?
Leave a Reply