Friday, April 6, 2018

Thing 15: Evaluating Information

I added a reference to a Wikipedia article about a secondary school I'm semi-familiar with. I'd remembered reading its entry before and that there were gaps. The article said "at present" the enrolement figure is xxxx. Wikipedia had asked "when?" I found a subject inspection from 2016 which included the enrolment figure, so I referenced it. I did find the enrolment figure on the Department of Education and Skills website but I didn't see a date and that's why I went with the inspection report.

This is the article I added the reference to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoil_Mhuire,_Clane. I found the task daunting and tricky at the start but I soon got into it. I'd seen the call for librarians to improve Wikipedia before but I didn't get round to it, so it was great to have the opportunity and motivation to do so now. This was a great idea for a Thing and I was pleased to get to use the hashtag #1lib1ref!

I find my own evaluation skills to be a continuous work in progress. I'm aware of the need to provide reliable sources of information and am aware of the basics of what to look out for (what someone's qualifications are, age of article, etc.). I don't necessarily feel better equipped now to talk to others about the need to critically evaluate, but it has certainly given me a confidence boost to have found a good reference.



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