Anne shared a newspaper article with us from the New York Times, (March 15) saying that after 244 years in print, Encyclopedia Britannica will no longer be published in print form. To see the article go to: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/after-244-years-encyclopaedia-britannica-stops-the-presses/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto
In this article it says that sales peaked in 1990 and has been on a downward decline since. What a tremendous drop in print sales since 1990 - from 120, 000 to 8,000!
We have a 2012 World Book Encyclopedia set sitting on our library shelves (that was given to us by the public library!). If World Book follows suit then I am wondering if I am looking at an historic moment - the last time a current print Encyclopedia set will be sitting on a library shelf?
There is lots of nostalgia in this for many of us - numerous hours spent exploring the world through this resource. I suppose the new generation will one day look back and fondly recall numerous hours spent exploring the world through their ipad. The times are simply changing!
Meagan, had the following comment to make regarding Wikipedia and I agreed with it wholeheartedly:
"After reading the articles I agree that Wikipedia is a good place to start for research. I think they key to its use by students for reference information is proper education. When it comes to developing their information skills, they need to be aware of its accuracy and reliability, as well as using other reference sources to verify their gathered information. "
I stated in the discussion thread that kids are gathering information from everywhere (as they should be) and giving them the tools and knowledge about how to evaluate their sources is extremely important. If we don't give these skills, they make assume that all information is true. We used to say just because it was in print it doesn't mean it's true. The same can be said for all information no matter where it comes from, print, digital, or otherwise.
Harjeet mentioned on the discussion board that her social studies students think that Wikipedia is the "be all and end all". She said, "We as TLs need to become more comfortable with using wikipedia and teaching students the right way of using it by comparing it to other sources when doing research." I agree that we need to be more comfortable with Wikipedia and teaching students the right way to use it.
I found the articles about Wikipedia really transformative. These articles are ones I have shared with other teachers so that rather than fight it they can help their students to approach sources such as Wikipedia in a more balanced way.
Wikipedia articles: http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/mar06/berinstein.shtml
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/211833555
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