Important Read: Archivist Jason Scott Has A Lot to Say About Wikipedia

Wikipedia can be a useful reference resource and IF you understand how it works (or doesn’t work) in both theory and in practice (often very different things) can be even more useful.
Of course, it’s A resource, NOT the resource. Sadly, many users don’t realize this and don’t use a wide variety of research and reference tools that are available on the web or via a library web site. It’s all about the right tool at the right time.
Wikipedia is far from perfect (this is the case with any reference work) but we also have concerns about how it operates.
We’ve shared some of our views many times over many years on the web and during many conference presentations.
Today, noted archivist, adjunct archivist at archive.org, and computer historian, Jason Scott, discusses several closely related concerns in a educational and thought provoking (note: contains strong language) blog post.
Kudos Jason!
Read the Full Text of, “The Quiet Wikideath of BBS History” by Jason Scott (via ASCII Weblog)
See Also: Video: Jason Scott Speaks at the Personal Digitizing Archiving Conference 2011
The title of his presentation is, “The Splendiferous Story Of Archive Team And The Rapidly Disappearing Digital Heritage.”

Filed under: Conference Presentations, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users