[Web4lib] The Wikipedia Gotcha

[Drew, Bill]

I am one of those kids where our parents got World Book back in 1958.  I read every volume of that encyclopedia skimming over article that did not interest me but reading in entirety those that did.  We were a blue collar family.  My father worked on farms and in feed stores as well as a stone quarry at one point.   We got annual volumes for that World Book up until I was in high school.  It was still on the shelves of my Dad's house when he sold it four years ago.  Th encyclopedia was actaully sold to us by my elementary school principal wh was alos a close friend of our family.  We also spent many hours in the Tompkins Public Library almost every Saturday.  My mother and father were avid readers,  my father still is!
 
To make this relevant to Web4Lib, My son and daughter read articles in Wikipedia in much the same manner.  We actually had a complete set of Britannica from 1990 that was discarded by my library when the library got a new version.  I also have other reference books that I kept after doing reviews for Choice Magazine.  My real rpize is the complete Grzimek's Encyclopedia fo Mammals.  It cost over $800 when I reviewed it 15 years ago.  It is now well worn.
 
Bill Drew
drewwe at morrisville.edu

________________________________

From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Louise Alcorn
Sent: Sun 2/18/2007 5:39 PM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] The Wikipedia Gotcha




-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Lars Aronsson
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 10:26 AM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] The Wikipedia Gotcha


>Traditionally, encyclopedias were a gift to kids when they went to
college, before the PC took on that role.  The cost of purchase
($1000?) divided by the number of times people actually look something
up (once a month?) in their encyclopedia over its lifetime (10 years? =
120 months) can be quite high ($1000 / 120 = $8.30 per lookup).  But
despite this, encyclopedias sold very well, not because >of their
usefulness but because of the prestige.