Comparison of Wikipedia and other encyclopedias for accuracy, breadth, and depth in historical articles

Reference Services Review

Volumn 36, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 7-22

  Rector, Lucy Holman ^a  

^a Harford Community College   (United States)

Author keywords

Encyclopaedias; Reference services

Indexed keywords

EID: 39449134841     PISSN: 00907324     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/00907320810851998     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Achterman, D. (2005), "Surviving Wikipedia: Improving student search habits through information literacy and teacher collaboration", Knowledge Quest, Vol. 35 No. 5, pp. 38-40.
2. American National Biography (2007), "Senior and Associate Editors", available at: www.anb.org/editors.html.
3. Awe, S. and Bibel, B. (2002), "2002 encyclopedia update", Booklist, Vol. 99 No. 2, pp. 254-60.
4. Balay, R. (Ed.) (1996), Guide to Reference Books, 11th ed., American Library Association, Chicago, IL.
5. Bauer, K.J. (1974), The Mexican War 1846-1848, Macmillan, New York, NY.
6. Benkler, Y. (2006), The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
7. Binkley, P. (2006), "Wikipedia grows up", Feliciter, No. 2, pp. 59-61.
8. Bohn, F. (1826), "America revealed in its Chautauqua", New York Times Magazine, p. SM3.
9. Bradford, S.H. (1886), "Harriet, Moses of her people: DDocumenting the American South Archives", available at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/ harriet/menu.html.
10. Brown, D. (1971), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, NY.
11. Browne, R.B. (2003), "Dictionary of American History" (book review), Journal of American Culture, Vol. 26 No. 3, p. 410.
12. California State Military Museum (2002), "The Mexican War and California: The battle of Natividad", available at: www.militarymuseum.org/Natividad.html.
13. Clinton, C. (2004), Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, Little Brown & Co., New York, NY.
14. Cornell University (2006), "Margaret Washington", Department of History, Cornell University, available at: www.arts.cornell.edu/ falcon/history/faculty-department-washington.php.
15. Coutts, B.E. and McConnell, T. (2004), "Dictionary of American History" (book review), Library Journal, Vol. 129 No. 7, p. 27.
16. Coutts, B.E. and Richard, J.B. (2000), "American National Biography" (book review), Library Journal, Vol. 125 No. 5, p. 55.
17. Dalinsky, M. (2000), "Noteworthy", Humanities, Vol. 21 No. 4, p. 54.
18. Denger, M.J. (n.d.), "The Mexican War and California: Los Angeles in the war with Mexico", available at: www.militarymuseum.org/ MexWarLA.html.
19. Encyclopaedia Britannica (2006a), "2005 Encyclopaedia Britannica print set suite: Product detailH", available at: http://store.britannica.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp? itemID=633&itemType=PRO DUCT&iMainCat=4&iSubCat= 14&iProductID=633.
20. Encyclopaedia Britannica (2006b), "Encyclopaedia Britannica Online", available at: https://safe1.britannica.com/offer.php?id=11.
21. Gale (2007), "Introduction", Dictionary of American History 2002, edition product description, available at: www.gale.com/pdf/ introduction/DAHIntro.pdf.
22. Giles, J. (2005), "Internet encyclopedias go head to head", Nature, Vol. 438 No. 7070, pp. 900-1.
23. Greene, J.A. (2004), Washita: The US Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK.
24. Greene, J.A. and Scott, D.D. (2004), Finding Sand Creek: History, Archeology and the 1864 Massacre Site, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK.
25. Harris, G. (2002), Treasure and Intrigue: The Legacy of Captain Kidd, Dundurn Press, Toronto.
26. Hatch, T. (2004), Black Kettle: The Cheyenne Chief who Sought Peace but Found War, Wiley, New York, NY.
27. Ishizuka, K. (2004), "The Wikipedia wars: School librarian sparks fight over free online resources", School Library Journal, Vol. 50 No. 11, pp. 24-5.
28. Jacso, P. (2002), "Peter's picks & pans", Online, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 79-82.
29. Janes, J. (2005), "Pedias, familiar and otherwise", American Libraries, Vol. 36 No. 9, p. 76.
30. Korfiatis, N.T., Poulos, M. and Bokos, G. (2006), "Evaluating authoritative sources using social networks: An insight from Wikipedia", Online Information Review, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 252-62.
31. Lessig, L. (2004), Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock down Culture and Control Creativity, Penguin, New York, NY.
32. Library Journal (2000), "AAP honors scholarly titles", Library Journal, Vol. 125 No. 3, p. 24.
33. Lih, A. (2004), "Wikipedia as participatory journalism: Reliable sources? Metrics for evaluating collaborative media as a new resource", Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Online Journalism, available at: http://jmsc.hku.hk/faculty/alih/publications/ utaustin-2004-wikipedia-rc2.pdf.
34. Meed, D.V. (2003), Essential Histories: The Mexican War 1846-1848, Routledge, New York, NY.
35. O'Leary, M. (2005), "Wikipedia: Encyclopedia or not?", Information Today, Vol. 22 No. 8, pp. 49-53.
36. Quinn, M. (2003), in Waugh, J. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American History: Civil War and Reconstruction 1856 to 1869, Vol. 5, Facts on File, New York, NY, pp. 358-9.
37. Read, B. (2006a), "Can Wikipedia ever make the grade?", Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 53 No. 10, p. A31.
38. Read, B. (2006b), "Students flock to an easy-to-use reference, but professors warn that it's no sure thing", Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 53 No. 10, p. A36.
39. Rettig, J. (2003), "Double dose of history", Booklist, Vol. 99 No. 18, p. 1690.
40. Ritchie, R.C. (1986), Captain Kidd and the War against the Pirates, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
41. Rosenzweig, R. (2006), "Can history be open source? Wikipedia and the future of the past", Journal of American History, Vol. 93 No. 1, pp. 117-46.
42. Scott, J.C. (1999), "The Chautauqua movement: Revolution in popular higher education", Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 70 No. 4, pp. 389-412.
43. Selby, J. (n.d.), The Eagle and the Serpent: The Spanish and American Invasions of Mexico: 1519 and 1846, Hippocrene Books, New York, NY.
44. Ward, N. (2003), "Dictionary of American History" (book review), Library Journal, Vol. 128 No. 9, pp. 76-8.
45. Weare, C. and Lin, W. (2000), "Content analysis of the world wide web: Opportunities and challenges", Social Science Computer Review, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 272-92.
46. Weaver, G., Strickland, B. and Crane, C. (2006), "Quantifying the accuracy of relational statements in Wikipedia: A methodology", Proceedings of the 6th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2006), Chapel Hill, NC, June 11-15.
47. WGBH (2002), "People and events: Doane Robinson (1856-1946)", available at: www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rushmore/peopleevents/ p_robinson.html.
48. White, M.D. and Marsh, E.E. (2006), "Content analysis: A flexible methodology", Library Trends, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 22-45.
49. Wikipedia (2006), "List of policies", available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LIst_of_policies.
50. Wikipedia (2007), "Wikipedia: About", available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ABout.
51. Zacks, R. (2002), The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd, Hyperion, New York, NY.