Reference questions while Wikipedia down?

January 19, 2012 - 12:21pm — Bibliofuture

Any reference librarians get questions that resulted from Wikipedia being down? If so what type of questions did you get? Where you able to answer the questions with your collection?

I have heard from one librarian that they received calls from home school kids that were working on projects and needed a different resource because Wikipedia was down.

Comments

January 19, 2012 - 5:45pm — Anonymous

Re: Reference questions while Wikipedia down?

I didn't get any reference questions I wouldn't have gotten had Wikipedia been up, but our encyclopedia sets saw some action. We posted fliers for the day that read Wikipedia would be down, while promoting our encyclopedias.

January 20, 2012 - 2:38pm — Anonymous

timing/academic library

First of all, much of the news media (including NPR) missed a major fact (especially with their concerns about "students being without luck") very few students are allowed to use Wikipedia as a source, so it had little impact there (this is also true of high school students I asked).

Secondly, the timing of this blackout made it difficult to assess any impact at an Academic Library; Tuesday was the first day of classes, so very few students were doing any research at all on this day.

January 20, 2012 - 3:27pm — Anonymous

Timing

>>the timing of this blackout made it difficult to assess any impact at an Academic Library; Tuesday was the first day of classes, so very few students were doing any research at all on this day.

We were back to classes a week before

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