Anti-Library bias at Wikipedia?

Daniel writes “People here know that many librarians have problems with Wikipedia, but apparently some folks at Wikipedia are returning the favor. Jenny Levine has an account of how her effort to lead readers of the Wikipedia entry for The DaVinci Code to libraries was crushed.”

May 16, 2005 by Blake Uncategorized 7

rochelle says:

May 16, 2005 at 9:29 pm

Kissed and made up
Jenny reports that issue has been resolved to her satisfaction.

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Anonymous Patron says:

May 16, 2005 at 11:02 pm

why was this “story” posted?
It doesn’t look like wikipedia has any kind of anti-library bias if they already have an option to link to worldcat in place.

Is lisnews anti-wikipedia? The language used here to describe this incident is very slanted.

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Daniel says:

May 16, 2005 at 11:12 pm

Re:why was this “story” posted?
“Is lisnews anti-wikipedia? The language used here to describe this incident is very slanted.”

I can tell you why I suggested the story. Jenny’s original item made it seem like the Wikipedia editor went out of her way to delete a link from the Da Vinci code entry to holding libraries. This doesn’t strike me as pro-library.

I’m happy to hear that Wikipedia will allow library linking, and so wouldn’t have submitted the story if I ran across it after Jenny’s followup. At the time, it seemed like a good idea.

Is LISNews anti-wikipedia? I don’t think so, but try our search feature and decide for yourself. I’ve seen librarians for and against. I’m personally for if the article is well sourced or written by someone who seems to be qualified; and against if the the article isn’t well sourced and there’s no reason to believe the author has special knowledge.

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cronopi0 says:

May 16, 2005 at 11:19 pm

Some more *interesting* posts on the topic…
Since the issue Jenny raised has already been resolved to the satisfaction of all involved, perhaps some more interesting recent posts on Wikipedia would include this one from Stephen Francoeur of Baruch College, this one from Jeff Pomeranz of UNC, or this one from Peter Binkley of the U of Alberta. Or somewhat less interesting, my own post on the matter.

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Anonymous says:

May 16, 2005 at 11:52 pm

Re: Is lisnews anti-wikipedia?
Hell No. A Quick Look At Libraries From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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Daniel says:

May 17, 2005 at 1:08 am

Re:Some more *interesting* posts on the topic…
These are more interesting posts. Thanks. I especially liked the new Wikipedia Project Page for Librarians.

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michaelkpate says:

May 17, 2005 at 3:49 am

Re: Is lisnews anti-wikipedia?
Not so fast. Perusing the archives we find charges that wikipedia is a funny name, that wikipedia is a know-it-all, that wikipedia is untrustworthy, that wikipedia says it is bigger than Jesus, that wikipedia is a recipe for disaster, that wikipedia is content-free, that wikipedia is like a public restroom, that wikipedia is suspect, that wikipedia promotes heavy metal music, that wikipedia is sometimes powerless, that wikipedia spreads fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and that wikipedia will lead to anarchy.

If these carefully edited, misquoted and taken out-of-context citations don’t show bias, I don’t know what would.

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