Wikipedia

The very fact that there is a WISER session entitled 'Beyond Wikipedia: Reliable Reference Sources' run by librarians, for staff and students at Oxford highlights the prominence of Wikipedia, in academic research. I use it all the time, to ‘check’ pieces of information and to research and I have friends who contribute or translate pages regularly. The editing feature once again makes the sharing views and information really easy and readily accessible and yet it also challenges my understanding of what an author is, who owns a piece of writing and who is responsible for regulating it. No doubt I will go on using Wikipedia for both serious study and fun research, knowing that it has its limitations but also that it is a great source of information.