Have you heard about Google's new experimental web service? It was quietly announced last Thursday, and there is a lot of buzzing about it in the blogosphere.
Knol (short for knowledge) is designed to be an introduction to knowledge - the first thing someone who searches on a topic will want to read. The New York Times covered it well, and of course there is information about it on the Google blog. Google states that it will, "encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it."
Only the author of an entry will be allowed to edit a Knol article; Google will provide authoring tools, store the information, allow others to comment and suggest edits and provide traffic via their search engine. The experts who author the postings will state their own credentials when posting. Each Knol will be a web page created using Google-supplied tools and layout, hosted by Google, and including content, links, and an author biography.
It is still very much experimental, and by invitation only at this time, but I think librarians will want to be very aware of what is going on with Knol and keep an eye on how library customers are using it.
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