The world wide web has digitized information and converged the way we access information. We view newspapers online via a computer or on our mobile phones, and we look up information by searching a key word rather than flicking through an alphabetized encyclopedia. The internet provides us with a seemingly limitless source of information, and now, it also allows us to contribute to that information through blogs, wiki’s and other user-generated sites.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedic data-base with users world-wide, it offers millions of articles in hundreds of languages. It is comparable to the grand encyclopedic volumes which once occupied the bookshelves of households the world over, but is much larger and taps into an infinite source of contributors. While similar in the aims of a physical encyclopedia, that is, to provide a wealth of reference information on the widest range of topics possible, it greatly differs in its creation and delivery.
Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation and based on a model of openly editable content. The name “Wikipedia” is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s articles provide links designed to guide the user to related pages with additional information.
Wikipedia is a free source of information which is created by the people who use it, unlike traditional encyclopedias which are written collaboratively by largely anonymous volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles, except in limited cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism. Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or, if they choose to, with their real identity.
Wikipedia has advantages over traditional paper encyclopedias. Wikipedia has a very low “publishing” cost for adding or expanding entries and a low environmental impact in some respects, since it never needs to be printed, although computers have their own environmental cost. In addition, Wikipedia has wikilinks instead of in-line explanations and it incorporates overview summaries (article introductions) with the extensive detail of full articles. Additionally, the editorial cycle is short. A paper encyclopedia stays the same until the next edition, whereas editors can update Wikipedia at any instant, around the clock, to help ensure that articles stay abreast of the most recent events and scholarship.
As I looked at our own sets of encyclopedias, they are now collecting dust. No one is using them for years. But I still remember that during the time when one of my kids had research to do and we don’t have internet connection, I introduced to him the encyclopedia which seems to be an alien to his generation.
By: LOLLY B. RAVAGO | Teacher III | Bonifacio Camacho National High School – Abucay, Bataan
