Compared to previous generations of historians, those of my age group have it much easier when it comes to finding sources and materials online. We have at our fingertips, a plethora of all sorts of data that has become available in the past few decades. While this is certainly an advantage of the digital age, the problem becomes what to do with all this data?
Several articles I have recently read provide models oh how historians can use digital resources to produce new forms of scholarship that would have been thought impossible, or at least extremely difficult 25 years old. The Thomas and Ayers “The Difference Slavery Made” project explores the complexities of pre-Civil War America in ways “simple” primary source analysis could not, and Trevor Owen’s article using Tripadvisor as a means of evaluating visitor experience demonstrate the new possibilities in visitor studies using already available visitor data.
Most of us, however, use one online tool that is so universal and pervasive, it has changed how both historians and the general public conduct research and inquiry. I am of course talking about Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. When I was in high school, many teachers told us not to use Wikipedia as it was not written by an established source. Nevertheless, I would use the site as an introduction to a topic, or as a tool when I needed to “fact-check” some bit of information. In doing so, I knowingly acknowledged the probability that i was reading correct and factual information. The risk I took is supported by Roy Rosenzweig’s 2006 article on Wikipedia, arguing (at least among Western topics), “Wikipedia is surprisingly accurate in reporting names, dates, and events in U.S. history. In the 25 biographies I read closely, I found clear-cut factual errors in only 4. Most were small and inconsequential.”
Thus is appears that despite my former teachers’ concerns about the accuracy of Wikipedia, they do produce useful articles for public and dare I say even academic perusal. Wikipedia has become such a dominant force in the cultural sphere that the National Archives has encouraged the idea of crowdsourcing in document transcription and in 2011 began to work with a designated “Wikipedian in Residence” to further the Archives’ engagement with the Wikipedia and crowdsourcing community. In the future, I see a continual embrace of Wikipedia. After all, if one of public history’s main goals is to foster the idea of shared authority, Wikipedia certainly embodies that spirit.
Below I have included an example of how the National Archives is making inroads with the Wikipedia community to develop a more inclusive version of shared authority.
Reflections on New Media 
Yes, I think Wikipedia is the most successful mass crowdsourcing project that really cannot be so easily dismissed. We need more work assessing the value of collaborations with Wikipedia.
I agree. I think the popularity and utility of Wikipedia caught academia and educators off guard initially. Online encyclopedias today seem a bit outdated and do not cover the amount of material Wikipedia offers.
Thoughtful post. Wikipedia is so well-known and widely accessible that it certainly makes sense to archive its content. I find it particularly impressive that the information is so accurate even though much of it is user-generated. Furthermore, I have a difficult time seeing Wikipedia losing its popularity, its platform is just simply too wide and too high.
Evan I really like this post! I think that Wikipedia has done something really important (other than providing easy access to a TON of relatively reliable information). The importance of Wikipedia in my mind is the fact that, more than any other website, it has gotten the attention of educational institutions, and so it has come under quite a bit of scrutiny. I too remember when our teachers demanded that we not use Wikipedia as a resource. This has definitely changed over time as people have become more familiar with the site, but as we all know, Wikipedia is certainly not a one-stop-shop for your information needs. Importantly though, Wikipedia gives us a good opportunity to explain to students how they should be using all web resources. Anything is fair game, but you ABSOLUTELY MUST check with a more reliable resource. Students now have so much information at their fingertips that it is more important than ever that they learn what a reliable resource is. They need to be trained on how to do online research, much like we were trained on how to look up reliable books in the library for research.
I definitely agree. Wikipedia is in many ways a starting point now, for many research papers….which is not a bad thing