The Wikipedia Wars

School librarian sparks fight over free online resource

By Kathy Ishizuka -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2004

It all started with a classroom argument. Susan Stagnitta, a librarian at Liverpool (NY) High School, recalls her students debating the merits of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia created and edited entirely by volunteer contributors. "Can you trust the information there?" they asked. "And who exactly wrote it?" "I was proud of them," says Stagnitta. In questioning the validity of their sources, she says, they were simply exhibiting good information-literacy skills.

But when Stagnitta related these concerns to a local newspaper columnist, who promptly dismissed the reference as untrustworthy, it sparked a furious dialogue that flashed across the Internet. The ensuing conflict between techies and librarians and open content versus traditional resources underscores the challenges facing information specialists in the Digital Age, particularly those who work with young people.

Considered among the most successful experiments on the Web, Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) has become a popular, widely used resource. Just three years old, it surpassed one million articles in September, with 350,000 entries in English alone. Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia or edit any Web page, thanks to software called Wiki, which allows any user to freely create or alter editorial content, and track those changes. Tens of thousands of volunteers have contributed to Wikipedia thus far, and a fanatical group of about 200 work the site daily.

Following an August 2004 column on Wikipedia by Syracuse Post-Standard writer Al Fasholdt, Stagnitta wrote to the journalist, who expressed her concerns in a later column. "As a high school librarian, part of my job is to help my students develop critical-thinking skills," wrote Stagnitta. "One of these skills is to evaluate the authority of any information source.… Anyone can change the content of an article in the Wikipedia, and there is no editorial review of the content." Consequently, Fasholdt deemed Wikipedia an "untrustworthy" site.

Technology blogs exploded over the issue. "If they really wanted critical-thinking skills, shouldn't they do more than trust this uninformed librarian?" wrote Mike of Techdirt, a technology blog. In other sharply worded posts, observers argued about what constitutes an authoritative work. While a few questioned Wikipedia's content, most vigorously rose to the site's defense, citing its vigilant contributors, who are quick to eliminate any errors or bias. This is impossible with traditional, so-called authoritative references, whose information is often dated and just as likely to contain questionable content, they say.

So Alex Halavais, an assistant professor of communication at the University at Buffalo and an active blogger, decided to put Wikipedia to the test—by inserting 13 errors into various entries. One error asserted that abolitionist Frederick Douglass had once lived in Syracuse, and another "fooled with the Periodic Table," says Halavais. Within two and a half hours, site visitors had corrected all the errors.

Even so, Robert Eiffert, a librarian at Pacific Middle School in Vancouver, WA, remains critical of the content. "I see holes in information, poorly written, incomplete, and inaccurate descriptions that seem to stay while other problems are fixed."

But Halavais says, "Kids are already going to the Web, and compared to most of the information there, I think this is much more reliable."

Tavis Hampton, a media specialist at Longfellow Middle School in Indianapolis, agrees that Wikipedia has its advantages. "Many times the articles in Wikipedia spark new ideas and provide helpful links or references," he says. "Used in isolation, it is insufficient for research, but I would argue that any encyclopedia is."

Meanwhile, Jacquie Henry, a library media specialist at Ruben A. Cirillo High School in Walworth, NY, sees her students consulting Wikipedia frequently, but she has her reservations. "[Experienced researchers] know enough to compare what they see on Wikipedia with other sources," she explains. "I am helping high school students to develop their critical skills—but they are not there yet."

As for Stagnitta? Although Fasholdt did not misquote her in his article, she says she never intended to dismiss Wikipedia entirely. "The point is to know your source," she says. Following the Wiki imbroglio, Stagnitta received hundreds of messages—mostly hate mail. Even so, she says, "I'm not sorry that it's generated controversy. It's a question we struggle with every day."