This is not the first time I have blogged about Wikipedia, the first time was on 10/26 2009 about Wikipedia as an official reference source. However in light of the Encyclopaedia Britannica stoppping print production I wanted to take another look. This was helped by the fact that many things have changed in the past few years and there are a lot of blogs that have been discssing these changes.

Although previously Wikipedia was outlawed in the classroom, many teachers have been changing their minds. This article discusses the dropping percentage of teachers who do not allow Wikipedia to be used as a source in the classroom. It also has a great breakdown of Wikipedia from this chart by Open-Site.org.

In fact, NARA, the government archives, has been using Wikipedia quite often in the past months. They have even started hosting what they call Resident Wikipedians to increase collaboration and participation in NARA with the public as seen here. This has convinced others, like OCLC to follow in their path.

Yet for all this, Wikipedia still has it’s issues… like false, or inaccurate, information. And some of it’s seeming pros can really be cons, like this one so well said by the library comic Unshelved.

So while I do believe Wikipedia has come a long way and will continue to improve. I still hold what I see on Wikipedia not as set in stone but rather as a possible truth, and I urge you to do so as well.