Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 22:06:50 -0800
Libraries are wonderful things, but a scholar who believes that "the sum of all human knowledge" is to be found in the library alone is like a medieval monk who believes that the same is to be found only in the monastery.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and an encyclopedia _is_ a distillation of things to be found in libraries.
Things that are _not_ to be found in libraries are published in peer- reviewed journals, not encyclopedias. Wikipedia is not a peer- reviewed journal. And journals have their own requirements, which in fact are more stringent than those for an encyclopedia, one being reproducibility of results. That's the "new-knowledge" equivalent of what we call "verifiability" and it is _much_ harder to do.
Which is why writing an encyclopedia article takes on the order of weeks while writing a research paper takes on the order of years.
Things that are _not_ to be found in libraries are also published in popular magazines, books by any publisher that thinks they can make money by selling them, self-published, published on the web, etc. Whether these are to be called "knowledge" depends on which definition of "knowledge" you use. In the Britannica's slogan, "The sum of human knowledge," they likely meant AHD4's meaning number 4, "4. Learning; erudition: teachers of great knowledge." It is, after all, an encyclo-PAEDIA.
Things that are _not_ to be found in libraries are published in peer- reviewed journals, not encyclopedias. Wikipedia is not a peer- reviewed journal. And journals have their own requirements, which in fact are more stringent than those for an encyclopedia, one being reproducibility of results. That's the "new-knowledge" equivalent of what we call "verifiability" and it is _much_ harder to do.
I don't follow you... my Uni library contains hundreds (probably thousands) of peer-reviewed journals...
Which is why writing an encyclopedia article takes on the order of weeks while writing a research paper takes on the order of years.
A encyclopaedia article is quicker to write because the only thing you have to do is write it. A research paper requires you to do the research first. Actually writing the paper doesn't take very long.
Things that are _not_ to be found in libraries are also published in popular magazines, books by any publisher that thinks they can make money by selling them, self-published, published on the web, etc. Whether these are to be called "knowledge" depends on which definition of "knowledge" you use. In the Britannica's slogan, "The sum of human knowledge," they likely meant AHD4's meaning number 4, "4. Learning; erudition: teachers of great knowledge." It is, after all, an encyclo-PAEDIA.
Plenty of libraries keep archives of magazines. Any publisher can have books in libraries, whether you like their books or not (which seems to be the only distinction you're making between books that should be in a library and books that should not - all publishers are in it to make money, that's what it means to be a commercial company).
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
Libraries are wonderful things, but a scholar who believes that "the sum of all human knowledge" is to be found in the library alone is like a medieval monk who believes that the same is to be found only in the monastery.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and an encyclopedia _is_ a distillation of things to be found in libraries.
Things that are _not_ to be found in libraries are published in peer- reviewed journals, not encyclopedias. Wikipedia is not a peer- reviewed journal. And journals have their own requirements, which in fact are more stringent than those for an encyclopedia, one being reproducibility of results. That's the "new-knowledge" equivalent of what we call "verifiability" and it is _much_ harder to do.
We really need to accept that the nature of peer review is changing. More and more I read about wikis being a medium for peer review. Journals are notoriously inefficient. If a researcher develops a truly novel idea reviewers are often not in a position to empirically establish the reproducibility of results; that could require the consumption of more time and resources than they have available. I'm sure that most would prefer to put that expense into projects that are closer to their hearts.
Ec