Remember when Dick Cavett interviewed Mary McCarthy? McCarthy told Cavett that every word Lillian Hellman ever wrote was a lie, including "and" and "the." Lillian has long since left this world, but if she were still here would she write a wiki?
I cringe every time I see a child or teen using Wikipedia for research. I know we've all seen book, newspapers, and journals containing errors. But on the whole I always hope that since the print material has been vetted, if not by the author, at least by the editor. And in the case of print material (or even computer databases) held by a library, by at least one librarian. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of some posters to wikis.
That being said, I do like Princeton Public's BookLoversWiki. Where the content is personal opinion I think it's a great idea. Staff and customers alike can post summaries and reviews of books they're reading. It could be a tremendous amount of work for anyone maintaining the site. It's certainly alot of work for us "J" librarians during Summer Reading Club to keep up with checking the kids' book reviews.
On to thing #17, I did add to a wiki. And every word, including "and" and "the" are true to the best of my knowledge. During my trip to London last year, I went to an apparently little visited museum in London, the Leighton House Museum.
I cringe every time I see a child or teen using Wikipedia for research. I know we've all seen book, newspapers, and journals containing errors. But on the whole I always hope that since the print material has been vetted, if not by the author, at least by the editor. And in the case of print material (or even computer databases) held by a library, by at least one librarian. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of some posters to wikis.
That being said, I do like Princeton Public's BookLoversWiki. Where the content is personal opinion I think it's a great idea. Staff and customers alike can post summaries and reviews of books they're reading. It could be a tremendous amount of work for anyone maintaining the site. It's certainly alot of work for us "J" librarians during Summer Reading Club to keep up with checking the kids' book reviews.
On to thing #17, I did add to a wiki. And every word, including "and" and "the" are true to the best of my knowledge. During my trip to London last year, I went to an apparently little visited museum in London, the Leighton House Museum.
It was a beautiful house and I do love pre-Raphaelite art, so I added an entry for it to World66.
No comments:
Post a Comment