Using Wikipedia to Extend Digital Collections - Ann M. Lally and Carolyn E. Dunford, D-Lib

In May 2006, the University of Washington Libraries Digital Initiatives unit began a project to integrate the UW Libraries Digital Collections into the information workflow of our students by inserting links into the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The idea for this project grew out of our reading of OCLC's 2005 report Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources [1] which states that only 2% of college and university students begin searching for information at a library web site. It is, therefore, incumbent upon Librarians to look for new ways to reach out to our users where they begin their information search. The explosive growth of Wikipedia made it a prime candidate for our efforts at pushing information about the Libraries out to where users conduct their research. It should be noted here that our digital collections are already harvested and heavily used by people all over the world; in fact, Google and its affiliates are the top referrers of people to our collections.

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