Roundtable Discussion on Wikipedia Phenomenon

By Tom Gresham

A panel of experts will address a number of questions surrounding the growth of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia built collaboratively by users, during a discussion on April 9 at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The panel discussion is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the VCU Student Commons Theater, 907 Floyd Ave. The event is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow.

Panelists will examine Wikipedia's reliability, its authority, the idea of collective authorship, its viability as an academic resource, its strengths, its biases and its vulnerability to commercial or marketing interests. The event precedes an appearance by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, at VCU on April 11.

Panelists discussing Wikipedia on April 9 will include:

• Lucretia McCulley is the head of outreach and instruction services for the University of Richmond Libraries. McCulley and her husband, VCU librarian Dan Ream, are completing a research project titled "Who Do You Trust?: Wikipedia and the Authority of Anonymous Strangers," which explores student, faculty and librarian attitudes toward Wikipedia.

• Marcus Messner is completing his Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Miami and will join the VCU School of Mass Communications as an assistant professor in the fall. Messner is the co-author of two articles on Wikipedia, including "Framing Corporate America: How Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica Portray Fortune 500 Companies."

• Marshall Poe is a consultant and writer who focuses on the Internet. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, including a piece in 2006 on the history of Wikipedia. Poe is currently writing a book about the Internet called "Everyone Knows Everything."

• Roy Rosenzweig is the Mark and Barbara Fried Professor of History & New Media at George Mason University, where he also heads the Center for History and New Media. His most recent book, co-authored with Daniel Cohen, is "Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving and Presenting the Past on the Web."

The Wikipedia events at VCU are part of the year-long series, "Creating and Consuming Culture in the Digital Age," which is sponsored by the Department of English in collaboration with the School of the Mass Communications and the School of the Arts. It is funded by the VCU Honors Program through its National Endowment for the Humanities Year program.

Jimmy Wales' appearance on April 11 is scheduled for 4 p.m. in the Commonwealth Ballroom of the VCU Student Commons. That event is free and open to the public.

For more information about these events and others in the series, visit www.creatingculture.vcu.edu or call 804-828-1331.