Internet for Sources of Information
(it's possible that the contents of a subject on-line can be more powerful than a traditional linear book)
Better results than books?
Few Web sites generated as much media interest in 2005 as Wikipedia, the collectively authored online encyclopedia.
The attention is well deserved because there is no more compelling example of the Web's collaborative potential.
- What makes Wikipedia interesting is how it gets its content: Ordinary people submit entries for different topics and then revise them over time.
- That is a truly radical break from the traditional closed-door, credentialed method of producing Encyclopædia Britannica and related kinds of productions.
- While there have been substantive critiques of Wikipedia's accuracy and comprehensiveness, the idea that a free encyclopedia written entirely by volunteers could give the venerable Britannica a run for its money would have sounded preposterous even ten years ago. Now it is a fact.
- The end products created by all those swarming amateurs are encyclopedia entries, supplemented by hyperlinks—which is what you would find on any of the traditional online encyclopedias, including Britannica.
There are innovative alternatives to the encyclopedia model out there
- They are not the highest profile sites online; however, as vehicles for conveying complex information, they may well make up one of the most successful species in the entire Web ecosystem.
- The Web opens up the opportunities for having something out there for much longer than those found in newspapers or magazines.
- Unlike a traditional library, a website is open for anyone to explore at any hour of the day or night.
- Typical visitors might find their way there via Google searches on a subject, and then, browse through various sites that provide a variety of presentations.
- An archive of connected documents can convey the riches of a subject more powerfully than a traditional linear book.
- Most people who use the internet for research end up bouncing from site to site with Google as their guide, collecting quotes and images and documents as they explore the wider Web.
- What is lost in the process is the individual, expert wisdom of "intelligent curators" who assemble the crucial materials that Google might overlook or is unable to find.