AW: Another take on Wikipedia and (academic) libraries

Just checking new IT books to purchase for our library and crawling through Amazon ("computer and internet", before October 2010, sorted by date.)  I'm in the middle of August now and there are lots and lots and lots of books with "High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles". 

Publisher is "Betascript Publishing" in all cases.

Made a according comment in one case (a gave it one star vote), I'm curious if Amazon will publish it.

Regards,

Robert Porth

-- 
Robert Porth                          | Technische Universität Berlin
Tel.: +49 (0)30 314 76311             | Universitätsbibliothek
r.porth_at_tu-berlin.de                  | Fasanenstr. 88, D-10623 Berlin
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Fachreferat Informatik, Geodäsie

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] Im Auftrag von Weinheimer Jim
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 28. Oktober 2010 16:56
An: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Betreff: Re: [NGC4LIB] Another take on Wikipedia and (academic) libraries

Laval Hunsucker wrote:
<snip>
Some may find interesting this (two-page) article by Corinna Nohn, dated Monday
25 October, published on sueddeutsche.de : 

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/wikipedia-kompilationen-bullshit-amen-okay-1.1015680 

"Fehlkauf mit System: Immer mehr aus Wikipedia-Artikeln kopierte Bücher  finden sich in Uni-Bibliotheken. Die "Enttarnung" gestaltet sich  schwierig."

etc.
</snip>

Thanks so much for bringing this to everybody's attention. While I probably shouldn't be surprised about this, I still find it shocking. I remember reading somewhere several years ago that in the 1600s a man in London was printing the same books under different titles repeatedly, and the booksellers forced him to sign an agreement that he would never print another book again! (Sorry, but I can't find where it was)

I found those publishers in the WorldCat database too. I wonder: how could a next-generation catalog help here? Librarians cannot be expected to check everything vs. Wikipedia. What could a next-generation library do to help people not only not to read it, but more importantly to help people avoid buying it.

James Weinheimer  j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
Director of Library and Information Services The American University of Rome via Pietro Roselli, 4
00153 Rome, Italy
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
fax-011 39 06 58330992
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/