Wikipedia : a new community of practice? / Dan O'Sullivan.

"During its brief existence Wikipedia has proved astonishingly successful with 2.8 million articles in English alone available freely to all with access to the internet. The online encyclopedia can be seen as the 21st century's version of earlier historical attempts to gather the world...

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Access Note:Restricted to users at subscribing institutions.
Main Author: O'Sullivan, Dan.
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Farnham, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, [2009]
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Description
Summary:"During its brief existence Wikipedia has proved astonishingly successful with 2.8 million articles in English alone available freely to all with access to the internet. The online encyclopedia can be seen as the 21st century's version of earlier historical attempts to gather the world's knowledge into one place. This book first offers a description of some of these earlier attempts. The author discusses five historical groups or communities of practice, all of which had similar ambitions to Wikipedia to make an impact on the society of their time through the dissemination of information. The second part is an analysis of Wikipedia itself, and the third part contains suggestions about how to approach it, how to contribute to it and what one might gain from it. Writing in an accessible style the author takes a socio-historical approach and argues that by looking at communities of practice in the past we can come to understand the radical, even political, nature of Wikipedia. The book will have a broad appeal to anyone interested in the development of this unique project, including information management professionals but also historians, sociologists, educators and students."--Jacket.
Physical Description:vi, 191 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780754674337
0754674339
9780754691938
0754691934
Access:Restricted to users at subscribing institutions.