Know What You're Getting...

For those of you who haven't been paying attention there's a site out there on the world wide web called Wikipedia. In a nutshell Wikipedia works best because it's people coming together to share the information they know. Sounds great, right? At it's worst, it's people coming together to share the information they know. Starting to see the problem? Without a voice of authority in the room there's bound to be some problems sooner or later. For Wikipedia these problems arise more often than not; people go to Wikipedia expecting to find accurate information. What they get is something less.

Case in point. earlier this week, a college student in Ireland fooled journalists all over the world by simply entering "facts" onto a Wikipedia entry. The lesson here is two-fold, I think. One, once again Wikipedia rears its ugly side - providing people with inaccurate information. The other lesson is just how popular Wikipedia has become. Journalists, professionals that we expect to adhere to a high standard of fact-finding are using Wikipedia as a one-stop source. Scary.

As the Instruction/Public Services Librarian at the Evans Library, I spend a lot of my time working with students so they can better understand how to evaluate the information they find. For websites like Wikipedia, the best place to begin to understand what you're looking at is to have this handout by your side. Having standards established before you start looking for information you want to use in a research paper, presentation or project makes the going all that much easier. And knowing how busy everyone is, this saves a lot of time!

Of course, if you have any questions you can always contact a Librarian! We're always available:

• In person at the Reference Desk during normal hours
• Through email (libinfo@fmcc.edu)
• By telephone (518.762.4651 x5611)
• Through our Ask Us 24/7 Chat with a Librarian service

-Mike Daly, Instruction/Public Services Librarian