More and more, we’re seeing sites which are user-generated. Wikis are the latest idea, especially in the Library 2.0 world. Who hasn’t used Wikipedia to find out some information? In case you aren’t familiar, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia where users can add their own content to a record. Keep in mind, this can really bring inaccurate information, but for the most part, the records are interesting and factual. We often point library users to Wikipedia to find out something that maybe we can’t find in a book, but schools tend to discourage students from using it altogether because of the possible inaccuracies. Wikis that are generated on other sites are popping up everywhere. You can probably find a wiki about any topic right now.
In this user-generated field, there is now a new beta search engine in the works called “Mahalo” that is billed as a human search engine. Users can register to add their own recommended sites to the search engine so that different sites might be brought up when a topic is searched. They claim that this will bring about many more interesting sites and ones that aren’t always pushed to the top of another search engine.
What’s next for user-generated information?
