Eureka!

A few days ago I ranted about Googlephobia and said, as teachers/librarians, rather than denigrating Google and Wikipedia, we needed to teach students to use them thoughtfully. This is library heresy, at least according to my cooperating teacher during my practicum.

Well, no lesser person than Chris Harris in the School Library Journal agrees with this radical statement. He said:

We cannot, however, continue to reject Wikipedia because we aren’t comfortable with the wiki process itself. Our students and their parents are just fine with it. To be quite frank, continually bad-mouthing Wikipedia to the very people who use it—successfully—makes us look a bit daft. It would be much more productive to teach colleagues, students, and parents how to best use Wikipedia. Instead of appearing to be “behind the times” when it comes to new information sources, librarians can foster educated, high-end users who verify Wikipedia entries using the history and discussion tabs. If we can’t beat ’em, let’s join ’em—as leaders in promoting the proper use of Wikipedia.

I rest my case!