I may have just made the switch from wikipedia to the Multnomah county library and its public records room.
An instructor once told me that the internet didn’t necessarily make information gathering easier and that you could find information easier through some traditional paper sources, like the city library or archives.
I didn’t scoff at her, but it did make me think. See, I am a wiki-taught historian. Since high school, I have used hours each day to adding to my knowledge bank by filling it with subjects from Goethe to famous fisticuffs. At the beginning, I used snopes.com, Imdb, and yahoo searches to do this. Then, at the age of 18, an adjunct English instructor introduced me to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia became my new internet stomping ground. It’s nature, purpose, and evolving nature fit perfectly with my internet-based education.
But over the past two years, I moved away from wikipedia for anything beyond picking up tidbits or a primer. I have two reasons for this: Wikipedia’s sometimes unreliable nature. We’ve all heard of Wikipedia hoaxes and nearly every professor I’ve known has warned against using Wikipedia for research for this reason because most of its based on second-hand information taken from other sources.
The other reason has been my journalism education.
I was taught that a reporter needs a vast amount of information to be able to write a news story with clarity and meaning. This information needs to be specific, you need specific figures, explanations, and histories and wikipedia doesn’t always provide that information.
I have always been disappointed with was how little I could learn about the city around me through wikipedia. Sure the page to every city I’ve lived in has an entry including the history, elected officials, and noteworthy persons in my city, but it didn’t seem enough.
So, the Multnomah library project: Every city has its lore and rules, and behind these lore and rules are the news stories, documents, and other records that tell your city’s story.
Objective: Take three-to-five specific subjects and lore, research them using the Multnomah county library, write a report, note my sources of information and present them on this blog.
Purpose: Get to know the information sources and stories of my city.
By the end of this week, I will have my subjects and post them to this blog.
You better update. I’m waiting.