Who needs Wikipedia when you’ve got Britannica?
How many toes does an aardvark have? Is anti-matter for real, or is it just something science fiction writers made up? What is a quark? Which movie won'the Academy Award in 1939? Who is the Nobel Peace Prize named after? What is concrete poetry? Where is Timbuktu? Who performed China’s first space walk? What is an ungulate? How does a particle accelerator work? Where can I find a hellbender? How can I answer any of these questions without Wikipedia? The answer to that is easy. You can look up all of these topics in Britannica Online.
With Wikipedia going offline on January the 18th, it seems like the perfect time to remind library users that the Toronto Public Library offers access to high quality, authoritative reference works. If you have a computer at home, these resources are available 24 hours a day, with your library card. If not, you can come in to any Toronto Public Library branch to access these resources. In addition to Britannica Online, we have Access Science (The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology), The Canadian Encyclopedia Online – Encyclopédie Canadienne, World Book Online, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, and more. For a full list, click here.
I guarantee you will never read the phrase, “This article is just a stub” in any of these vetted resources.
10 thoughts on “Who needs Wikipedia when you’ve got Britannica?”
Hello Maureen,
Thanks for this timely article. You’ve highlighted some excellent online sources of information. Some of these will be particularly useful for paren’ts who are encouraging their children to use non-Wikipedia resources for school projects.
I love your comment about the dreaded “stub” disclaimer too!
Not Quite Miss Rumphius
Supporting the fight for an open and free internet is something all libraries and librarians should be doing.
Thanks for your comment, Not Quite Miss Rumphius. You reminded me of something that is worth mentioning: some of the encyclopedias available on the Toronto Public Library website include versions for children. For example, World Book Online includes World Book for Kids; Britannica Online includes Britannica Kids, and Canadian Encyclopedia Online includes Junior Encyclopedia of Canada. For paren’ts whose children are in French Immersion, we have Encyclopédie Découverte, the French version of World Book Online for Kids.
I do like Wikipedia. I love the communal nature of it. Not a big fan of the ‘stubs’, though!
The Guardian has an interesting piece called, “Can you trust Wikipedia?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/oct/24/comment.newmedia
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ummm, sorry to burst your bubble but in no universe will Britannica offer the current awareness and breadth of content that wikipedia offers. Sure, if you’re writing an academic paper, don’t cite Wikipedia but you sure as heck can review the references on their articles and be off to the races with your research.
I’m all for an open and free internet, Greg. Much as I love Britannica, there is information in Wikipedia that is not (at least, as of this moment)available in Britannica. Just to take one example I came across recently, there is no article on the Skull and Bones Society in Britannica, but there is an interesting article on it in Wikipedia. The more resources we have access to, the better. The title of my post is misleading, because, as I said in my response to the previous comment, I actually like Wikipedia. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Susan. I agree, using the reference section in a Wikipedia article can lead to all kinds of interesting resources. The title of my post (meant to be attention grabbing), and my jest about ‘stubs’ seems to have given the impression I’m anti-Wikipedia. I’m not. Really.
I’m not going to deny that Wikipedia has its merits. I am a frequent and happy user of the site.
However, as a longtime user I can confirm that there are many errors on the website. Try reading an article on a subject on which you have done extensive research. Almost always, you’ll find that either someone inserted some kind of misinformation in the article or there were very important things that were omitted.
I don’t have to tell you that anyone can edit Wikipedia articles. However, what you may not know is that those who edit Wikipedia are not limited to your average, fallible, biased human being.
A website called “Wiki Scanner” allows you to see who is editing the website.
http://tinyurl.com/2ffdho (Note: It doesn’t appear to be working right now)
Utilizing this tool, it has been discovered that Wikipedia is regularly edited by large corporations, congressional offices, and, unsurprisingly, the CIA.
http://tinyurl.com/745n2ay
Many articles that challenge the official version of the 9/11 attacks are edited or deleted. The Wikipedia administrator who is chiefly responsible for this, “MONGO”, has admitted to working for the US Department of Homeland Security. He subsequently deleted the page in which he made this admission, but it has fortunately been archived:
http://tinyurl.com/7jj75gb
What’s more, “MONGO” has a blog. Reading his posts, it won’t take you long to realize that he is an avid neo-conservative:
http://tinyurl.com/8yeu4l6
Everyone has an agenda, and that impedes Wikipedia from being a solid, credible source of information. It’s a great way to start your research on something, but to trust that it is thoroughly checked for mistakes is just being unrealistic.
Don’t jump all over the author for citing some of these other great sources.
Great piece Maureen. And you’ve certainly generated an enviable number of comments for a library blog!
I am a fan of BOTH Wikipedia and Britannica, though for somewhat different reasons. Encyclopedias are by their nature a quick and dirty solution for a simple information fix. While Wikipedia does have a greater number of articles, and is often more generous with follow up sources, Britannica’s articles are on the whole better written. Wikipedia is quicker in one sense (no login through a hosting library web site) But the slightly greater likelihood that the information may be inaccurate sometimes leads me to follow up with some fact checking (more than I would for Britannica) and the layers of secondary and tertiary detail in many Wikipedia articles makes me wish I had just taken the time to use my library card to start with.
Comparing the editorial approaches of crowdsourcing (often expert) vs. traditional (always expert) will I hope, motivate us to analyse how we ourselves seek and evaluate information. Simon’s observations on Wikipedia did not surprise me. Everyone does indeed have an agenda. It will always be hard to find or put forward so called “alternative” political or historical points of view on any popular crowdsourced resource for the simple reason that the majority of editorial effort will reflect the majority views.
But then if you want “alternative” I wouldn’t go to Britannica either.
Very interesting! I’m going to check out some of the links you included in your reply, Simon. Thanks for the information.
Thanks, Blog Prince. To be frank, I didn’t anticipate that a brief post designed to highlight some of our online encyclopedia resources would generate this many replies! I’m glad it did, though. Everyone who voiced an opinion here agrees that Wikipedia is a good thing. Comparing traditional reference sources with sources like Wikipedia does lead to interesting questions about information seeking, and ‘authoritative’ information, as opposed to non-authoritative information.
Fact checking is always a good idea, and even traditional reference sources contain errors.