Archivopedia: The online archives encyclopedia
This website focuses on the management and research of primary source materials.
Based on Library 2.0 technologies, Archivopedia offers many services helpful to librarians and those wishing to learn more about library and archival research.
The wiki encyclopedia is open for anyone to edit and contains information relevant to archivists, librarians, public historians, and museum professionals. MLIS students will also find the study guide of terminology and biographical entries helpful. For individuals seeking a job, internship, or practicum experience, the wiki offers a free service to post a link to a resume or ePortfolio. For administrators and directors, there are links to funding sources like library grants and foundations that cater to library-related projects such as digitization, preservation, and collections description.
Link to the wiki to find out more: http://archivopedia.com/wiki/
In addition to the wiki, the site offers a search engine specially customized to find primary source materials around the world by keyword. This feature takes advantage of open source / open access initiatives and is designed to promote repository collections containing original materials by enabling researchers the opportunity to find and link to collections and specific items held at various repositories that might interest them in a single search. Try a sample search like “George Washington” in the search engine:
http://www.google.com/cse?oe=utf8&ie=utf8&source=uds&start=0&cx=01516329....
Link to the search engine: http://archivopedia.com/_mgxroot/page_10753.html
A new Online Learning Center was recently introduced. Designed for library, archival, and history educators at all levels in mind, the Online Learning Center focuses on:
* How to use primary sources in teaching
* Building instructional design modules
* Learning object database
* On-demand tutorials
* Web 2.0 integration and programming tips
* Web-deliverable interactive, self-paced 24/7 lessons
Members can deposit a learning module for their students or library patrons.
Link to the Virtual Campus page: http://archivopedia.com/_mgxroot/page_10754.html
Primary Sources, the site's news publication, pulls the latest stories from news headlines relevant to archivists, librarians, records managers, public historians, and museum professionals. Readers can vote on issues in the news though online polling with instant results.
Link to the News page: http://archivopedia.com/_mgxroot/page_10743.html
The site is currently seeking beta version users and contributors to explore and comment on development issues.
Sincerely,
The Archivopedia Development Team
First, thanks for posting.
I'd say, the site needs work. Other than the Wiki, it seems like you need to fill out the content -- beyond a couple of RSS feeds and a Google Search box.
Also, you definitely need an "About Us" page indicating who you are. Providence is just as important on a website as it is for any other data point.
There is no original content there right now, and the project seems overly ambitious to include the archives profession, and genealogy apparently open to the public. Is it trying to be a professional site, or a storage space? It's advertised as an encyclopedia, with google providing the search results. EAD finding aids are generally the product of a professional organization. Why store them here rather than having them on their own organization's site, where the organization could benefit from its own advertisement.
Overly ambitious.
There are over 1,000 articles of original content in the encyclopedia.
http://archivopedia.com/wiki/
That's not too bad considering it has only been around a few months. Some of the articles are only partial articles. The encyclopedia is a wiki so it's collaborative. Basically, people can sign up and contribute to it either by adding articles, or by editing or adding to existing ones.
There are some interesting features including voice readings of some of the encyclopedia articles. Also, the site seems to be experimenting with social tagging of the encyclopedia articles. I think this is new because I haven't seen this before in other wiki encyclopedias like Wikipedia.
http://archivopedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Archivopedia_Folksonomy
I would hardly call the articles "original content" in many cases - most of them are nothing but links to Google searches for the term in question.