pls remove link from LibriVox to Wikipedia (!)

pberinstein · Post by **pberinstein** » January 19th, 2006, 11:35 am

Chris,

I understand what you're saying about Wikipedia being free and other encyclopedias requiring an outlay of cash. My feeling is that Wikipedia will not eat into the sales of other encyclopedias because the audiences are different. Libraries and schools buy Britannica, World Book, etc. They're not going to stop buying them because Wikipedia exists. I originally worried that Wikipedia would hurt the others economically, but I'm pretty sure that won't be the case. If they suffer, it will be for other reasons, like cutbacks in budgets and that sort of thing.

Just my opinion, of course.

Post by **hugh** » January 19th, 2006, 11:45 am

Note 1: I have edited the original text of the article, as the librarian contacted me and asked that I take down her original note. I provide instead a generic verion of the important points.

Note2:
germany, which has the highest per capita wikipedia users, also had significant increases in sales of encyclopaedia, which I learned in Paula's great interview with Jimmy Wales, that you can hear here:
http://writingshow.com/?p=88

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » January 19th, 2006, 11:49 am

hugh, thanks for the clarification... putting it in context makes it more clear.

vee · Post by **vee** » January 19th, 2006, 12:46 pm

pberinstein wrote:Chris,

I understand what you're saying about Wikipedia being free and other encyclopedias requiring an outlay of cash. My feeling is that Wikipedia will not eat into the sales of other encyclopedias because the audiences are different. Libraries and schools buy Britannica, World Book, etc.
Just my opinion, of course.

Oh I seriously doubt Britannica and World Book are hurting. I was thinking more of the home buyers. I remember being a kid and my parent's bought a set of both (I think Britannica was the thin red ones and the World Book's were really fat green ones. There was also some series "Great Writers" or something, basically like 50 authors or so) I'm pretty sure my parents would never buy another set of them just because changes were made. I don't know if I'll even buy a set of my own, maybe I'll just take the old set.

I would hope that libraries do not decide to drop their purchases of encyclopedias because of Wikipedia. While wikipedia is a great resource it is much more valuable as one of many resources to use.

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » January 19th, 2006, 2:28 pm

Thank you from me also, Hugh, for clarifying your views on librarians.

When I first read your comment, it turned me off as it did Betsie, but I knew you wouldn't mean to offend us and quickly realized what you probably meant to imply. So the clarification is helpful.

One thing I love about working in a public library is that it is the ultimate equalizer in our society. Anyone can go to a public library and get information, education, entertainment. Everyone is included, everyone is protected, we will help anyone find what they want or need. In that way, it is a revolution and it is thrilling to be a part of it.

Stephan · Post by **Stephan** » January 19th, 2006, 2:48 pm

vee, that reminds me of how by grandparents were pretty dumbfounded once.
They bought such a paper-encyclopedia for thousands and thousands of euros, pretty late in their life, and said kinda proud:"Once we?re dead, you?ll own it."

My brother and me tried to put it nicely but in the end we said something like "Oh, dear granny, we are so sorry, but, you know, we just download it and own it on a disk. Computer helps us to find information easier. We really won?t be needing these tons on our bookshelf, if not for the good looks."
They understood. (Luckily my grandpa bought a computer when he was 80 and did community work with it. Else we wouldn't have known how to break it to them)

Post by **hugh** » January 19th, 2006, 3:52 pm

apologies to any librarians I may have offended, I certainly did not mean it as such... quite the oposite!

miette · Post by **miette** » January 19th, 2006, 9:17 pm

It just hit me how useful Wiki applications -are- in teaching basic library sciences skills (excluding basic research). I remember learning to cite sources, use articles and newspapers, cross-reference, ad inf. Extending beyond the content of a wiki article, its use as a basic organisational tool is astounding; Hugh touched on this in his original response, but the reason the -paedia (sorry for pretentious ligature; it's a hard habit to kick) is by far the most popular Wiki is that the format lends itself flawlessly to the natural centralisation of various knowledge sources (which may be one way to define a library, after all). In addition to supporting Wikipedia's content and what that offers (including the benefits of checking multiple sources), I should think librarians would easily embrace the technology that drives this. Moving card-based filing systems to databases and scanning in newspapers were two of the largest moves libraries took in streamlining their information. Wiki applications enable the two to talk together (of course, without librarians manually going through that mess). The librarians (not the forward-thinking librivox librarians!) will come round soon enough, knock wood...

Mikey · Post by **Mikey** » January 26th, 2006, 2:01 pm

hugh wrote:stephan are you suggesting I spend useless& endless hours in front of my computer writing stuff that very few people will read, instead of doing constructive things that I might get paid for?

Oh. My. Gawd.

What is that bright yellow blob in the sky??

jimmowatt · Post by **jimmowatt** » March 9th, 2006, 12:55 pm

hugh wrote: Below is a paraphrased sample of an email we occasionally get from librarians and teachers, as well as my response to the email. I have paraphrased the emails.

***

To LibriVox,

LibriVox is a great web site. I hope to help my students to use the audiobooks. However I am concerened by the link to Wikipedia you have on your site. We teach our students that Wikipedia is not the best source of information, since anyone can edit it, and we suggest they critically evaluate the site (just as we suggest they evaluate any web site). Wikipedia markets itself as an encyclopedia and many people think it is "tried and true" as a source of information. This is especially a problem in yourger people who have not developed the skills to properly evaluate. I suggest that you should consider taking the link to wikipedia off of your. There are many other sites on the internet maintained by credible sources that could be included instead. Thank you.

http://LibriVox.org

Hello Hugh
I know this is quite an old discussion but I've just arrived and am intrigued by it.
You made a fine case for Wikipedia and I wish to do big cheer and maybe even a Mexican wave, all by myself, from the sidelines.
I can see the thinking behind the criticism of Wikipedia but it strikes me as a little basic and superficial.
So many times I've been astounded by the quality of information from Wikipedia. I will, and do, question all information I receive.
People progressing through the education system are encouraged to question all information so their potential for problems in Wikipedia should be minimal. If I read Britannica I know I will encounter errors. They take trouble to commision articles by the top people in the field for their but it still may be flawed and in only a few months outdated.

My own field is history which (I know it sounds bizarre) changes on a week by week basis as to our understanding of what happened in the past.
Gibbon had his view of the decline of the Roman Empire and, although his view still has some validity, we have more data now and can assess different views.
Gibbon might be quoted in an established encyclopedia (I'm now thinking it would have been so much more impressive if I'd looked this up in Wikipedia afore I started typing) but I'll bet that someone has written something more up to date which reflects the perusal of increased data.

I think there's a fashion to assume information from the net is flawed.
I think this is a simplification of the need to question information from the net as you would question information from Brittannica, Gibbon, Nietzche, wherever ...

Always question
There is no such thing as received wisdom

The net is not a special case
Just another case

Post by **hugh** » March 9th, 2006, 4:08 pm

indeed! - and wikipedia is not the source of information, it is a source. strange to me that people tend to hold wikipedia to a standard higher than britannica!

I got some flak, by the way, for attacking librarians & treating them shabbily in this exchange, which is a bit upsetting to me - I have such respect for librarians & the work they do: in fact the librarians I know are mostly the caped avengers at the forefront of this battle for freedom of information. and if you think about it wikipedia, librivox,gutenberg, all these owe their existence to the concept of a library: a place where free information is available to all.

pberinstein · Post by **pberinstein** » March 9th, 2006, 4:20 pm

jimmowatt wrote:[
People progressing through the education system are encouraged to question all information so their potential for problems in Wikipedia should be minimal.

While I completely agree with your assessment of Wikipedia, Jimmo, I can only wish that the above were true. Unfortunately, it isn't. Too many people fail to question what they see and hear, and the educational system isn't fixing that problem.

Paula

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » March 9th, 2006, 7:08 pm

pberinstein wrote:Too many people fail to question what they see and hear, and the educational system isn't fixing that problem.

The educational system isn't capable of fixing this particular problem; people have ALWAYS tended to accept whatever they hear. It's a part of the human condition; it's the entire basis for such things as gossip, rumors, and politics.

Consider the people you know who you think of as "smart". They're the ones who question information; who try to think for themselves rather than simply accepting what's fed to them. The ignorant, like the poor, will always be with us. It's my job to try not to be that way and to teach my kids to question in the same fashion.

It's particularly irksome when your kids actually DO this... but I encourage it anyway

pberinstein · Post by **pberinstein** » March 10th, 2006, 9:31 am

I do think that some of that can be addressed by teaching critical thinking, Chip. When I was in school, they told us to go through newspapers and magazines and showed us how to distinguish fact from opinion. That was invaluable.

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » March 10th, 2006, 9:43 am

They don't care about any of that stuff anymore. These days they teach you how to pass standardized tests. I had to teach the kids critical thinking myself.

Oddly, it worked surpassingly well...