Knowledge Distribution -- Now vs. Then

History has a way of repeating itself...and morphing into something "the same but different". There's still a hunger for knowledge, and for passing on what you know to the next generation. Just the location and the format is changing.

Wikipedia's the elephant; is there room for traditional reference?

by Gwenda Bond -- Publishers Weekly, 5/12/2008

In late 2002, millennia after its inspiration was destroyed by fire, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina opened its doors near the original site of ancient Egypt's Library of Alexandria. The new institution launched with the heady goal of matching its predecessor's standing as the ultimate source of knowledge in its time. The project came with controversy, both for its $220-million price tag and relatively modest collection of 500,000 volumes.

It's ironic, then, that Wikipedia, another contender to be the ancient library's modern-day successor, debuted almost two years earlier, on January 15, 2001, with no controversy and only a paltry 600 articles generated in its first month. But while the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's collection continues to hover around the half-million mark, by this year Wikipedia has amassed more than nine million articles across 250 languages.

Wikimedia Foundation's founder, Jimmy Wales, speaks in utopian terms: “Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.” What makes Wikipedia unique isn't this ambition, however, but how it works in practice.

While encyclopedias have traditionally been the province of expert contributors and venerable brand names like Encyclopaedia Britannica, the online juggernaut relies solely on volunteer labor—anyone with an Internet connection can contribute—to the tune of more than 300 million edits so far. Writing in the New York Times last year, Jonathan Dee summed it up: “Love it or hate it, though, its success is past denying....”

I've always been amused that "authors" are considered a set-apart group of experts.  Even if they research folk wisdom and traditions -- authors have been regarded as a cut above the average person.  Being an editor, publisher and published writer (if not book author), I've found that much of the set apartness is marketing strategy.  Not substance.  There's as much drivel in academia as in folk wisdom.

What tickles me is that those barriers to passing on one's knowledge is rendering that authorial advantage a relic of the past.  EVERYONE is creative.  EVERYONE has knowledge to pass on to their children and great-great-great-grand communities.  Be it a quotable  remark, a building technique or a memorable story that inspires, the one saving grace of new technology is that it is truly more democratizing than political or academic education.

The question that  nags at my conscience is, "How does marketing strategy set its priorities... by profitability or by value to our children and our children's children?"  We have such a wonderful toolbox of messaging tools available to us -- WHAT will we do with them?   What matters most?