The Future of Print Research: Really Heavy Loads of Paper v.s. Endless Lightweight Virtual Pages

I work with children between the ages of 7 and 13 on a daily basis, and often times the kids get stumped on a particular word or topic of discussion. In the room I work in, we have access to a collection of encyclopedias from 2003, the World Book collection, as well as a large assortment of atlases, dictionaries, thesauruses, and random primary school text books. I often suggest that the children consult these references if they are in need of any information, and I almost always get a blank stare. The kids have never seen the World Books before, and you can forget an atlas. They, on the contrary, suggest we search for the answer on the internet.

No, how dare we, the internet is full of pages made by average, every day people, how can they be even remotely scientifically accurate?

I have been taught to be very cautious when approaching the internet. I am to make sure, if reading any form of scientific literature, that it is peer-reviewed or under the authority of a University or highly regarded research group. God forbid I elicit the help of, one of my favorite websites, Wikipedia. Throughout my college "career", I was told that Wikipedia was one of the deadly sins of research, and to stay very far away from it. It was nice to find that Wikipedia may not be so bad after all. In 2005 the journal Nature put forth some interesting figures regarding the validity of Wikipedia. They found that the accuracy of science entries found on the Wikipedia website, was nearly on par with those entries in Britannica. The link is here,but you will need access to the site through a subscription, or perhaps you can gain access if you are a college student (just use the portal found in your libraries web page). Now, this article was written almost 5 years ago, and the popularity of Wikipedia has soared since. Many people will fetch up the typical debate against this wonderfully gathered website: anyone can edit it, so there must be falsehoods, Right? Upon further analysis, you will find that most pages on Wikipedia, at least the important ones, can not be edited. If, in fact, the pages can be edited they go through a rigorous moderation period, in which time the page can be reverted back to its original state.

So am I archaic in principles of research, or have I just been taught the archaic ways by old guys who can't get with the times? Maybe I SHOULD steer clear of Wikipedia, but then again, this idea that we can build off of one another, and learn from one another to create one all encompassing, literal World Encyclopedia, is incredible. After all, some really smart guy once said that "We Stand on the Shoulders of Giants." even if those giants are made from a bunch of little smart guys. I would like to think that we could all learn something from one another and this crazy thing called Wikipedia, even if it is in a location surrounded my porn, Facebook, and the World of Warcraft.

Well, at the very least, and most cautious, use Wikipedia as a starting point. Use it to get an understanding of the topic, and then go from there.