RSS feedsLaunched in January 2001, online encyclopaedia Wikipedia offers anyone the opportunity to add or edit an article - based on the philosophy that users will eventually correct details until a consensus emerges.
It has more than 450,000 articles in English and more than one million in 105 languages - on subjects as diverse as agriculture, electronics, photography and weaving. Wikipedia's website states that just 2.5% of its community edit material on the site.
With no central editorial authority, Wikipedia has an opportunity to be a vehicle of free speech, democratising encyclopaedias, or - as many IPs will see it - as an unreliable amateur resource of unverified content.
Supporters of traditional publishing in the Open Access debate point to the importance of peer review to achieve academic accuracy. While many of Wikipedia?s contributors may be passionate about their subject, their knowledge and writing abilities cannot match that of a professional author or academic.
The lack of a bibliography, or biographical details about the authors may also add to the lack of trust many will have in this resource. Where Wikipedia does score highly is its ability to be newsworthy in its content coverage. In the wake of Boxing Day's tsunami, for instance, Wikipedia's users quickly aggregated lots of background information on tsunamis and the Boxing Day disaster in particular.
For information professionals, Wikipedia is a bottled version of the internet. Contained within this site is a host of unverified content on a wide variety of subjects, and, as a resource, it saves users from carrying out masses of searches. But just like web searching, there is no way for users to be sure the content is trustworthy.
Wikipedia has clearly galvanised a lot of contributors who want a free online reference service. As Linux and Google have shown in the recent past, incumbent providers can be caught napping by the communal online support for clever, innovative technology behind these resources.
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