Online versus dead-tree reference resources
I had
written earlier about Wikipedia and that Mr. Robert McHenry (who is Former Editor in Chief of the Encyclopedia Britannica) was grousing about how Commons-Based Peer Production resources such as Wikipedia were poor quality and chaotic:
McHenry’s central thesis is that, quite contrary to general observation, Wikipedia is a poor-quality resource, that it is in a constant state of chaos, and that these problems will tend to get worse over time. Of course, he doesn’t explain how one is to reconcile this claim with the increasing popularity of Wikipedia, other than a veiled suggestion that people are simply stupid.
The above quote is from an excellent
rebuttal to Mr. McHenry written by Aaron Krowne in Free Software Magazine.
Well today, we see a perfect example of this coming home to roost with the publication of the Oxford University Press's updated Dictionary of National Biography. This is a 60-volume set retailing for around $15,000 USD. From an article in
The Guardian Unlimited:
At £7,500 for the set, you'd think they'd get their facts right
The long-awaited publication of Oxford University Press's updated Dictionary of National Biography should have been another garland around the neck of one of the most respected and scholarly brands in the world. After 12 years of research, the 60-volume edition contains more than 50,000 biographies and costs £7,500.
Yet the growing number of mistakes coming to light in the dictionary's pages threatens to make it an embarrassment, and some leading scholars even fear the new edition of the DNB is endangering the international reputation of the whole university city of Oxford.
This month a heated row that began on the letters pages of literary and historical journals late last year has forced the editors of the dictionary to publicly defend their work. Errors in the biographies of significant historical figures such as Florence Nightingale, Jane Austen and George V are more than just minor details, say the DNB's detractors. In the case of Nightingale, experts argue, the factual and interpretational blunders will damage modern understanding of a unique medical practitioner and theorist.
Of course, had this been done as a Wiki, the errors would have been caught and updated on the fly. True, the scholarship would be decentralized and anyone could make or edit an entry -- this is part of what makes it work so very well...
Posted by DaveH at March 6, 2005 3:35 PM
| TrackBack