Monday, May 5, 2008

Wikiality

In yesterday's Washington Post (4/4), Monica Hess questions our use of online information in her article Truth: Can You Handle It? Better Yet: Do You Know It When You See It? She discusses the increased popularity of Wikipedia and, as Steve Colbert describes it,"wikiality: a reality where, if enough people agree with a notion, it must be true."
Thankfully, as Hesse points out, librarians are leading the charge to show the importance of thorough research and the notion that information is good - but knowledge is better.

1 comment:

booklover472 said...

This is the first reference I have seen to this article. The article's general concept is valid: question your sources.

But that doesn't seem to be the article's conclusion. Perhaps we do hear what we want to hear and believe what we want to believe - but that does NOT make it the truth.

Fran

Encyclopedia Brittanica takes a beating here when compared to Wikipedia. I wonder how other respected resources compare?