It is over a week now since the education.au seminar that featured Jimmy Wales here in Adelaide. I’m still thinking about some things but I suspect this will be my last post directly related to the seminar.
The popularity of Wikipedia amazes me. Even here in the library there are people that will consult it before they consult any of the other resources we have here. Why is this, I asked myself. The answer seems to be accessibility. Searching Wikipedia can be as easy as embedding the search engine into your browser or by using a “widget” how many of us have the time to make our catalogues as accessible?
I stumbled across a Pew Internet study entitled “Wikipedia Users“. In the report it is stated that “36% of online American adults consult Wikipedia”. They go on to say:
50% of those with at least a college degree consult the site, compared with 22% of those with a high school diploma. And 46% of those age 18 and older who are current full- or part-time students have used Wikipedia, compared with 36% of the overall Internet population.
The report suggests a number of factors why it is so popular, including:
- The sheer number of articles, and the breadth of topics covered
- A correlation between the number of users who use search engines, and the number of times Wikipedia is in the first page of results. The report says “Over 70% of the visits to Wikipedia in the week ending March 17 came from search engines”.
- Convenience is also suggested as being a factor. Wikipedia is easy to access and easy to use.
For a site that always seems to be in the press with articles about inaccuracies and other negative aspects of Wikipedia, it would appear that it is fair to suggest that the Internet community has genuine affection for the site and it is meeting their needs.
This raises a couple of questions in my mind:
- How do we generate the same level of enthusiasm for our resources?
- What is is that Wikipedia gives our users that our own services does not?
- How can we better meet the needs of our users?
It is certainly going to be interesting to see the effect Wikipedia has, and the resulting cultural changes it is making, over the course of the next couple of years.
Photo of the crowd located using the everystockphoto search engine, uploaded to flickr by user tldagny.
