Medusa

Printed Version Of Wikipedia May Soon Become A Reality

Printed Version Of Wikipedia May Soon Become A Reality

<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Encyclopedias have long been the bastions of human knowledge that we turn to in our time of academic need&period; Before Wikipedia&comma; if you wanted to use an encyclopedia&comma; you had to be a full set of around 20 or so big books filled with information&period; But&comma; since Wikipedia’s inception in 2001&comma; more people have gotten their information from the convenient online resource than from anywhere else&period; Gigantic printed volumes of work ceased to become necessary or even relevant as accessing free and generally reliable information was obviously the best option for most people&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">All that being said&comma; it appears as if Wikipedia itself could become one of those gigantic printed volumes of work in the near future&period; The &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Wikipedia Book Project” has started a crowd-funding campaign on Indeigogo to turn Wikipedia into a 1&comma;000-volume compendium with just under 1&period;2 million total pages&period; The project is seeking &dollar;50&comma;000 to be able to print Wikipedia in its current entirety&period; This is certainly an ambitious project but one that will allow folks to see the sheer size of Wikipedia in a truly physical sense&period; The 1&comma;000-book set will have to be transported around on pallets before it finds a home on what must be an incredibly long library shelf&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><strong>The Reason behind Printed Wikipedia<&sol;strong><&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">For most people&comma; the value of a printed version of Wikipedia will be negligible&period; In a utilitarian sense&comma; there’s really no reason to use a printed version of the online encyclopedia&comma; largely because the online version is much more convenient&period; It must also be understood that the online version is constantly changing&period; It is a very malleable medium that a print version really can’t compare to&period; So&comma; what’s the point behind all of this&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">According to a spokesperson for the project&comma; the printed Wikipedia compendium is meant more as an art project than it is a useful resource&period; Only one version of the current Wikipedia will be printed&comma; so it’s not as if these sets are going to be available for sale or individual use&period; Initially&comma; the books will be displayed at the annual &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Wikimania Conference” that will be held in August 2014 at London’s Barbican Centre&period; At the Wikimania Conference&comma; the group also wants to have a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;live ticker” of sorts that prints out live updates of Wikipedia as they happen&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><img class&equals;"alignright" title&equals;"Printed Version Of Wikipedia May Soon Become A Reality" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;upload&period;wikimedia&period;org&sol;wikipedia&sol;commons&sol;thumb&sol;2&sol;23&sol;Wikipedia&lowbar;logo&lowbar;Book&lowbar;of&lowbar;Records&period;svg&sol;256px-Wikipedia&lowbar;logo&lowbar;Book&lowbar;of&lowbar;Records&period;svg&period;png" alt&equals;"Printed Version Of Wikipedia May Soon Become A Reality" width&equals;"256" height&equals;"228" &sol;>All of this is to really help us visualize the size and scale of Wikipedia&period; It’s also a way to effectively pass on our knowledge of categorizing and storing digital information so that future generations can see just how we operated&period; Obviously&comma; it’s unclear if Wikipedia will even exist in the future and it may be interesting for digital historians 100 years from now to see how we stored our digital media&period; In general&comma; though&comma; it’s a fascinating look at one of humanity’s most important collections of knowledge&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">If the project gains enough traction &lpar;and funding&rpar; at the Wikimania Conference&comma; then it may go on a worldwide exhibition tour in late 2014 or early 2015&period; The final resting place of the printed version of Wikipedia will likely be a public library&period; As of this writing&comma; the Wikipedia Book Project has only about &dollar;2&comma;100 of the required &dollar;50&comma;000 for publication&period; So&comma; it’s certainly not set in stone that the printed version will become reality&period; That being said&comma; there are still 50 days to go&comma; and&comma; if we’ve learned anything about digital media&comma; it’s that things like this can spread like wildfire in no time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h5 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Featured images&colon;<&sol;h5>&NewLine;<ul style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">&NewLine;<li> <span class&equals;"license">License&colon; Creative Commons<&sol;span> <span class&equals;"source">image source<&sol;span><&sol;li>&NewLine;<li> <span class&equals;"license">License&colon; Creative Commons<&sol;span> <span class&equals;"source">image source<&sol;span><&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">William Ecksel is a senior editor at IndustryNewsCorp&period; He writes about numerous topics including sports&comma; business&comma; news&comma; and anything else he finds interesting&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

Exit mobile version