In our Lesson 6 Lecture notes we were asked, "What is your opinion about established vs. free citizen-built encyclopedias such as Wikipedia? Consider how information environments are evolving and also think about the challenges for developing information literacy skills." (Letain, 2012).
I personally believe a lot of research goes into the creation and construction of encyclopedias. Qualified individuals should get credit for the work they do to ensure quality information is accurate. Recently the Apple Store released an App called iBooks Author. iBooks Author is designed to create textbooks and make them available for general use. My issue with this system is we may see a rush of textbooks for iPads and student access that may not contain accurate information, because a high school student thought he might create a Chemistry 12 textbook. Authors and editors are being paid to provide our students with accurate and detailed texts and reference books so research can be completed successfully.
The free citizen-built resources do provide new teachable moments. These resources are pushing teacher librarians more than ever to teach our students to be critical evaluators of resources. These free citizen resources are pushing teacher librarians to arm our students with more skills to weed through the good from the bad. Sadly, we already are doing that when we provide students with the print copies of resources.
A benefit to the free citizen-built resources is print encyclopedias cannot be replaced every year with updated versions due to budgets. The citizen-built resources can provide recent up-to-date daily information. The risk is that the information may or may not be accurate or credible and could potentially be biased to the contributor's point of view.
Overall, I believe both resources have worth, especially with more onus being put on Web 2.0 applications. Students should be encouraged to use both forms but should also be taught the skills to determine the worth of the resource. Additionally, e-encyclopedias could be updated more frequently and students could be directed to use those resources instead of Wikipedia.
References
Letain, A. (2012). Lecture notes: Lesson 6 - General and Specialized Encyclopedias. Univerisity of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
FYI, Apple is currently working with all the major textbook publishers on electronic versions appropriate to the tablet. It's only a matter of time and money.
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