[WEB4LIB] Re: Co-founder of Wikipedia talks about problems

[Ross Singer]

Drew, Bill wrote:

>This is not a classic generation shift. It just shows people going to
>what is available with the least effort!
>  
>
Which is exactly what people do and is exactly why libraries and 
librarians are struggling to get patrons to use the clumsy resources 
that they pay so much to have access to.

I don't think the use of Wikipedia should be encouraged or discouraged.  
It's a website just like any other, however, what makes it special (and 
therefore, more valuable than academic and "vetted" sites, IMHO) is that 
people are actually *using* it.

Therefore, what we need to do is create ways to access this "valuable" 
information from /within/ these alternative interfaces.  This search in 
Wikipedia also brings back x number of results in Academic Search 
Premier (or whatever) and provide a link to that canned search.  Or this 
movie that you are looking at in IMDB is available from your local 
public library.

I don't think the solution is to try to take people away from "what is 
available with the least effort".  Good God, no... at least they're 
searching somewhere.  The much better approach would be to insert 
ourselves into their search (wherever) and present alternatives to 
whatever the user got.  We get really concerned about "branding" and 
making sure that people know where the resources they use come from, but 
this can be achieved (possibly better) through ubiquity than through 
forced branding by forcing people into our resources and websites.

If my library is just "everywhere", then I'm not nearly as likely to 
forget about it.

-Ross.