virtually a librarian

Google has announced a new service, currently in private beta, called Google Knol. A frenzy has ensued. Go check out the original announcement on the Google blog, and have a look at the number of links back to the post. Try a Technorati search on the subject. Watch as the Wikipedia entry evolves. Everyone is talking about it.

Why? There’s widespread concern that Google is attempting to usurp Wikipedia’s prominence as the reference tool of choice for a majority of internet users, and to make some money out of it. The argument goes that this is perhaps a little out of sync with their “do no evil mantra”. But is this new project any more or less “evil” than anything Google have done in the past? Duncan Riley at TechCrunch, self-acknowledged follower of the Google religion, points out the difference between Google’s entrance into the knowledge hosting/creation domain, as opposed to some of it’s other recent forays:

Knol on the other hand brings the power of Google into a marketplace that is already rich with competition, and a marketplace where Google can use its might to crush that competition by favoring pages from Knol over others, on what is the worlds most popular search engine.

There are a lot of issues here, undeniably. I’m not going to get into the revenue debate or the “big bad Google” line of questioning. Lots of other people have done it really well already. What I do want to say it this: yes, this is clearly an attempt to gain some of the Wikipedia market share and to make some money out of it.

But if we set aside the ‘evilness’ (or ‘business’) aspect for a moment, I think the really interesting thing about this project is the departure Google is making from the basic tenets that underpin the Wikipedia model - tenets which some librarians have rallied against.

The return of the author; or, the masses may not be so wise
There seems to be something of a departure from the idea of the wisdom of the masses in this new venture from Google. From the official Google blog:

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content.

Now, I love Wikipedia, and I am decidedly not one of those “stick your head in the sand and decry the evils of user generated knowledge” type librarians. But, one of the key arguments against Wikipedia has been that the masses might not be so wise; that without knowing who authored an article, it’s impossible to verify its credibility. So, does this new project from Google not offer something that we’ve been lamenting the loss of? The return of the author. The ability to see who wrote an article, go off and Google them, use a citation tool to verify their credibility, check an OPAC to see what else they’ve written, head off to the website of their organisation to see what biases they might have… Interesting.

But is it anti two-point-oh? Maybe, but Google has indicated that community tools like reviews, rankings, submission of edits and questions will be prominently featured. So it seems like there’ll still be potential for debate, criticism and discourse. We’ll need to watch to see how this plays out.

Multiple articles on a single subject will present multiple points of view
Now this could be interesting. Knol will not present a single encyclopedic, be-all-and-end-all entry on each topic. Rather, following this idea of the return of the author, it will present multiple articles on a topic, authored by different people, and quite possibly providing differing viewpoints.

I read one blog post this morning that suggested the result might be an unusable web of confusion. And this might well be the case. But it might also lead to people being exposed to differing viewpoints and being forced to critically evaluate and analyse what they’re reading. This is a good thing, right? What kind of impact will this have on our customers, and on us? An increased need to assist our customers develop their information literacy?

I’m not sure that we should be so ready to poo-hoo this concept of multiple articles on a single topic before we see how it plays out. Who would’ve thought, ten years ago, that a free, collaboratively written and edited encyclopedia could be a useful reference tool? Wikipedia has seen us break away from the idea of leather bound volume published by a reputable company as centre of the reference universe. We’ve embraced the concept of a sea of words cobbled together by the masses as legitimate reference source.

It might end up a useless mess; it might end up a mess that we can use as a teaching tool, to illustrate the need to critically evaluate information; or it might end up as a valuable site for debate and discourse, where no single opinion or voice can be edited out by the loudest group, allowing for a presentation of opposing viewpoints. We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.

The end of Wikipedia?
I really like the way Wikipedia works. I think the masses are essentially pretty wise. And I really don’t want to see it’s demise. But I don’t think that Google Knol signals the end for Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a strong brand, with a legion of loyal followers and contributors who believe in what it does. The Google Knol model is pretty significantly different, and I don’t think it’s going to do Wikipedia any real damage anytime soon.

Good vs evil: can we get past the revenue issue and see the potential?
Yeah, the whole revenue issue is quite shudder-some. Google is clearly trying to make some money out of something Wikipedia does “for the greater good”.

But if we put that aside for a second, I think this Google project has some interesting potential. I’ll be keenly watching to see how it plays out. For one thing, won’t it be nice to do a search for some basic reference material and not have the same Wikipedia article reappearing on five different websites in your top five results?

And you never know, perhaps the world of Knol authors will prove to be altruists who’ll opt out of the ad revenue stream.

At least the frenzy will keep us amused as we wait to see how this plays out.