Wikipedia on the Cusp of Adolescence

On January 10, 2011, Wikipedia (the free, online, editable encyclopedia) turned 10 years old. All of us here in the university community--whether we're librarians, faculty members, or students--have had mixed feelings about Wikipedia from the very beginning. Students are told from early on that Wikipedia articles should not be used in bibliographies or serious research! Librarians and instructors always feel the need to mention the site when discussing serious research and what NOT to do.

However, as a librarian, I must admit:  I use Wikipedia.  Frequently.  I use it to find background information about topics that I know little about, and I use to double check certain dates, places, events, etc. that I figure the conscientious Wikipedia community would ensure are correct.  NPR has been running stories on the wiki all week long, and today's story was particularly interesting, to me, since they interviewed NPR's reference librarian Kee Malesky.  While Ms. Malesky admits to using Wikipedia like I do--to gather basic, background information--she is also "well-known" for her distrust of the site.  She even keeps a running document, "So You Think Wikipedia is OK," that tracks errors on the site.  I wish I could see that!

Some of you may remember the 2005 Nature news feature that compared Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica in terms of errors and content.  Interestingly, the study found that the average science article in Wikipedia contained 4 inaccuracies, while the average science article in Britannica contained 3 inaccuracies--not a huge difference, overall.  The feature goes on to discuss lots of more interesting details about the content of Wikipedia, as compared with other, more "authoritative" encyclopedias, and is thought provoking.

I think we can all agree that Wikipedia has its merits, even though we may always approach it with a bit distrust--but is this really different from any of the other sources that anyone in the scholarly community may use?  As instructors and teachers of the research process, librarians often emphasize the critical step of evaluating information in the research process--this is the crux of many of my instruction sessions with both undergraduate and graduate students.  I try to teach the significance of ALWAYS evaluating sources--whether they come from a scholarly database or the free web.  It's a given that Wikipedia should never be used as a sole source for research or cited in a bibliography--but using it as a starting point?  It can be a great resource for students (and others) to practice their evaluation skills...

*1/13/11 Update:  Just found a January 7 Chronicle article that contains a similar argument.

More on this later!  For now, listen to what others are saying about Wikipedia, how they use it, and why they do or don't trust it: