Yahoo plans to add functionality to Yahoo Search that will give people shortcuts to content from Wikipedia, the community-based encyclopedia.
The links to Wikipedia content will be displayed above search results, said Yahoo and the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group that is parent to Wikipedia, on Thursday. The feature will be added sometime during the next several weeks in the United States and in some European, Asian and Latin American markets, Yahoo said.
In addition, Yahoo will provide hardware and resources to Wikipedia.
Will this mean more teachers and librarians will have to learn to tolerate the Wikipedia? Students and patrons will be stumbling upon entries more and more in their search for information on the internet. Will we turn a blind angry eye or will we embrace the technology and become contributors to the wiki and help make it into an authoritative research tool? The choice is ours.
IMHO, I find the wikipedia a good starting point--especially if a topic is completely unknown to me and I trust it more than just googling and hoping I find a good page quickly. I use it as a means to a better end -- not as the end mean. We must teach our patrons, students, and colleagues to do the same.
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