The future is finally here. The creators of Wikipedia have done it again, inventing a new, immersive form of Wikipedia called the library. “It used to be that you were at a distance from Wikipedia, staring at it from your screen monitor. With the invention of the library, we have revolutionized how you can use Wikipedia so that it is a much more integrative experience. You can grab and touch Wikipedia now, you can smell Wikipedia, and you can even live in Wikipedia. The library is a truly transcendent thing”, said Jimmy Wales, one of the two co-founders of Wikipedia.
Just how does the library work, though? Larry Sanger, the other co-founder of Wikipedia, explains: “The library is largely composed of another invention of ours, called the book. As to what books are, it’s best to think of them as physical manifestations of Wikipedia pages, with the pages all relating to some broader subject matter. Further think of these physical Wikipedia pages as being separated from one another by something called chapters, with the chapters varying in length depending on how much exposition the author wishes to do. This is an imperfect analogy, but it’s nevertheless a useful one. Ultimately, you have to see and use books to appreciate their distinctive qualities.” Sanger continued: “These books then are placed on shelves, with the library essentially being a building with shelves containing books, including other objects and people that are peripherally important. In effect, what we have created here is a Wikipedia you can integrate yourself with, that is sure to shape how we learn and educate others for a long time.”
Some educators, however, are skeptical about the educational value of the library, and discourage use of library sources in class work. High school Anthropology teacher Marissa Ronald said, “More and more students are using library sources as research, but I try to discourage overuse and overdependence on library sources, for obvious reasons. For one, library sources are typically the product of a single author, or at the most two to three, but it’s not unusual for Wikipedia sources to be edited by hundreds of people, and clearly more authors is better than less. Also, library sources lack hyperlinks.”
High school history teacher Sam Michaels, in an impassioned speech, shared his opinion with the Obiter, noting that “listen, at the end of the day, it’s all about the hyperlinks, and library sources just don’t have it. You can’t teach kids without hyperlinks, period. That’s why I think the library is at best a novelty, as in maybe something to do with the family on the weekend. But for proper school work? Wikipedia all the way.”
Of particular worry to educators is the emerging problem of library-based plagiarism. Mark Gonzales told us, “It used to be that you could just copy and paste parts of an essay into Google and then you would clearly know if a student plagiarized from Wikipedia, or if you wanted a more sophisticated tool, you could use Turnitin.com or something like that. Now you have to keep an eye out for students who copy text from books, with some even just blatantly handing in books for their assignments. Even worse, the crafty ones will take ideas and arguments from books, and rephrase them just enough that you can’t tell if they are plagiarized or not. It definitely makes my job as a teacher tougher. What am I supposed to do? Read books? Who has the time for that? And where are the hyperlinks?”
What do high level academics think about the library? We spoke to a famous and renowned professor of philosophy, who chose to remain anonymous, about his opinion on the library. He said, whilst wearing monocle and top hat, “I find it highly unlikely that a paper with even a single library source would meet the stringent demands of the peer review process. In my mind, there is no known worthwhile academic journal that would take seriously a paper with that kind of unreliable research acting as its epistemic foundation. Perhaps the invention of the library is a net positive with respect to the promotion of the public good, as there is a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that the library encourages learning amongst youths. However, despite this, I find it to be indubitably true that the library has no place in academia, though perhaps there is some possible realm where this certain fact of our world is actually untrue.”
He continued: “I would also like to add that library sources lack hyperlinks, with an abundance of hyperlinks being a quality that I consider to be highly valuable to a work’s academic credibility and accessibility. The library is an interesting novelty, but Wikipedia-based research has been the scholarly orthodoxy for some time now. The library is, simply put, a woefully inefficient and unreliable means of research.”
Sanger and Wales, despite their enthusiasm about the potential for the library, acknowledge its shortcomings. “At Wikipedia we understand that the library, though promising, is imperfect. For one, we promise everyone that we are working hard on the lack of hyperlinks problem. We have some promising new technologies that we are thinking of incorporating into books called bibliographies and footnotes that we think can mimic the functionality of hyperlinks. However, we are still in the testing phase with these technologies, so it will take some time before they can be available in a commercial setting. We just ask people to be patient, and give the library a chance.”
All that remains to be seen is if people will give the library a chance, as Sanger and Wales hope that they do.
EVAN IVKOVIC, Staff Writer