I was fiddling around in Google maps today, looking at the area around Valley Forge (we'll be there tomorrow or Sunday), and I clicked the "More..." button on the map. To my surprise, there was a checkbox for Wikipedia in there. Clicking the checkbox adds gazillions of little "W" links to the map - Wikipedia entries pertaining to that location. (There were three or four in Valley Forge national park, if I recall correctly.)
Right, right... I'm a librarian; Wikipedia should be anathema to me. But I love it. Not for research - I'm fond of EBSCO and, when I have access to them, some of the historical databases for that. I use Wikipedia the way I used Google five years ago - it's my search and discovery tool. Putting it on the map directly? Now I don't even have to open a new tab in Firefox to do what I was going to do anyway!
Sure, there are some searches I still go to Google for first - the website of a national organization, or voter registration information for New York, for example. But if I want to know about hedges? It's off to Wikipedia.
No comments:
Post a Comment