Wales Summons Librarians to Helps Improve Wikipedia

Wales Summons Librarians to Helps Improve Wikipedia. According to Jimmy Wales, the quality of the Wikipedia would be improved if only librarians 'engaged' with the encyclopedia. He wants information professionals to form and join Wikipedia Academies to create a generation of editors who will drive the standards upward. The job of a librarian, you may be interested to learn is 'about highlighting the weaknesses and strengths of information'.

This all comes from the Information World Review with Mark Chillingworth. Now, perhaps I'm reading this incorrectly, but is he actually trying to shift the responsibility for ensuring the quality of content over to information professionals? When exactly are we supposed to be doing this? I'm all in favour of fixing and improving things, but I think it's a stretch to try and put responsibility onto the profession. It's not as if we're not already doing stuff... there are a superb series of resources such as the virtual libraries like Intute and listed at Pinakes, or the Librarians' Internet Index and teaching people how to do better and more effective searching. Rather than complain that librarians are not getting involved, might it not be an idea to turn it around and to encourage librarians, or to consider why they're not (and to be honest, it's a bit of a snub for those who are!) All in all, rather disappointing.

Comments

[WoW!ter]

Interesting every time I try to fix matters I have the wikipedia police breathing in my neck.
And the Dutch wikipedia is much worse than the English speaking police.....

[Larry Fafarman]

WoW!ter said,
>>>>>> Interesting every time I try to fix matters I have the wikipedia police breathing in my neck. <<<<<<

Exactly. I have given up on Wickedpedia. It's hopeless.

For example, once I tried to add the book "Of Pandas and People," a book that a federal judge banned from public school classrooms, to the Wickedpedia list of "banned books." The Wickedpedian control freaks refused to accept the entry. As a compromise, I proposed listing the book along with a note that the listing was disputed and links to external websites where the dispute was discussed or debated. No soap. The Wickedpedians finally completely rewrote the whole banned books article just to avoid listing the book.

One school district has even banned Wikipedia from all of the school district's computers, and I hope that other school districts follow suit.