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Dear fellow research leaders,

I use the Groucho approach with my kids: I would not want to use an
encyclopedia that would accept me as a contributor.

(To paraphrase Groucho Marx, a comedian in the mid 20th century, he said
would not want to join a country club that would accept his as a
member.)

Best regards,


Martin Swist
mswist@asij.ac.jp
Middle School LMS
Middle School XC Coach
The American School In Japan
1-1-1 Nomizu, Chofu-shi, Tokyo
"The heart is a little to the left." (Rev.) William Sloane Coffin

I just finfshed Terry Pratchett's Nation, and am reading Inside beauty,
by Cynthia Kadohata.


-----Original Message-----
From: School Library Media & Network Communications
[mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Susan Grigsby
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 5:29 AM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: [LM_NET] Wikipedia

Folks:
Recently we hosted author Laurie Halse Anderson at our school and she
was a
fabulous speaker! She mentioned Wikipedia to our students and I started
to
cringe until I heard her say it was a bad idea to use it. This is what I
had
been saying all along so I perked up to hear what her argument was.
She said she authored her OWN entry and when she went back a couple of
weeks
later to add something saw that her birthdate had been changed, the
number
of siblings had been changed, the timeline of her books had been
changed,
and so on. She told the kids, "If I can't be the authority on myself how
can
you trust anything on that site?" It made a big impact on the kids that
heard her speak and I've seen a drastic reduction in kids running to
that
site for quick info once word got around.
The big point is that the information is not reliable whether through
disinformation, misinformation, harmful intention or honest mistake. I
went
to an article there once and someone had managed to write POO in between
most every sentence - obvious and quickly fixed but how do you know when
the
mistake is WAY more subtle at the exact moment you happen to hit that
article? The short answer is, you can't.

-- 
Susan Grigsby, Teacher-Librarian
President, GLMA
Elkins Pointe Middle School
Roswell, Georgia
susan.grigsby@gmail.com
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have
the
life that is waiting for us.  - Joseph Campbell
----------

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