Monday, March 26, 2012

The life of an encyclopedia



Last week it was reported that, after 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.  Paper volumes will be replaced by online subscriptions.  So, is it the end of an era?  Or does accessing information online just make more sense?

As far back as 2005, the media were comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia and printed encyclopediae.  They raised issues such as accuracy, providing references and writing styles versus convenience, timeliness and cost.   MSNBC.com suggest that we must trust but verify the information we find on Wikipedia; information taken from Wikipedia, for academic purposes, should be verifiable, i.e. the author must be able to backup what they are saying by providing a reference to the original source.

What do you think?

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