[WikiEN-l] Nobel prizewinning chemist: "in my field, Wikipedia is more reliable than textbooks"

[geni]

On 4 November 2011 14:24, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway at gmail.com> wrote:
> Harry Kroto.
>
> 'Kroto shared his views on what he calls the "GooYouWiki-Revolution"
> and spoke highly of Wikipedia as a resource.
> "In my field," said Kroto, "it's more reliable than the textbooks."'
>
> http://www.reflector-online.com/life/wikipedia-not-all-bad-even-sexy-1.2665094


In fairness his field is chemistry which has issues with its
textbooks. Most of the best chemists are more interested in publishing
in journals rather than text books and all but the most fundamental
areas (and Atkins Physical Chemistry has rather a lot of that area
locked down) move so fast that books are outdated within a year or so.

Throw in the academic publishing sector wishing to push out new
editions of their organic and inorganic chemistry books each year and
errors in proof reading are also an issue.



-- 
geni