Saturday, March 18, 2006

Are librarians into authority? What is authoritative information anyway? Are authority and accuracy synonymous? For example, just how authoritative is the wikipedia's entry on Bharatanatyam? The wikipedia is created in what can be called a commons-based peer production of knowledge model.  Many people write the entries and often we can't and don't know who wrote them.  For readers (and librarians), this makes it hard to decide whether to trust in the information, especially if one does not know the topic - if one is learning it. Checking references, finding other and multiple sources for the same information should help. But still, we're left with lots of questions about exactly how authority and accuracy correlate. comment []7:44:05 AM

© Copyright 2006 Anita S. Coleman. Last update: 4/22/2006; 7:11:23 AM.