Further to my earlier post about Wikis and Blogs as sources for legal authority and judicial citation, here is a great link to the Harvest Christian Academy’s page entitled “Lose Your Wikipedia Crutch.” The page lists 100 places to go in search of information on a variety of topics, arranging the places by type such as Library & Reference, User Contributed, Encyclopedias, Science & Math, Social Studies, Fine Art, Language & Literature, Technology, Question & Answer, General and Miscellaneous. If you just aren’t sure about that Wikipedia entry, why not try one of the alternatives listed in this article to jump-start your search?
Also, in the spirit of healthy competition, Google has announced its own user-contributed-content encyclopedia, Knol. The tagline is “a unit of knowledge.” According to itself, a “knol” is an authoritative article on a specific topic. From the site:
Knol makes it easy for you to write and share your knowledge with the world. Knol offers:
Ease of use
All you need is an account, a name and a desire to write and we’ll take care of the rest.Control
You specify the level of collaboration you want with the community. Your knol, your voice.Community
You can connect with other experts in your area of interest to share and grow knowledge.Visibility
We value and promote authorship. Great content will be visible on any search engine.Growth
Sharing your knowledge with the world is rewarding for everyone.
It was launched on July 23, 2008 and appears to still be in beta form. There is still plenty of room for good “knols” contributed by all of you bursting-with-knowledge sorts.
