February’s issue of Cites and Insights from Walt Crawford sums up the debate over the accuracy of the Wikipedia vs. that of traditional encyclopedias.
The TeleRead take: The rap agains the Wikipedia is unfair in many ways. Critics, for example, don’t understand that you can link to snapshots of the Wikipedia rather than rely on the ever-changing versions. Beyond that, keep in mind that the Wikipedia has some inherent accuracy-related advantages over the Britannica and the rest. On the whole, for example, it is more up to date, especially on tech-related topics. At the same time, I like the idea of libraries and other professionals fact-checking entries, which they could then publish on library sites.
