The prof of WikiWorld
Like many people living in the digital age, Marshall Poe was curious - amazed, actually - by how Wikipedia works.
A worldwide encyclopedia, created, edited, and used by laypeople - how does that function as an unbiased, reliable database of information?
While the UI history associate professor was researching the history of Wikipedia for the *Atlantic Monthly*, he realized these pseudo-experts had a consistency. All people know something, and they now have a place to share it. The only issue was making sure it was trustworthy.
And that is where people like Poe come in.
"I made my living by authority, and here's Wikipedia," made by people who "don't know anything," he said.
Poe came to embrace Wikipedia, and he uses it in his classes as a way to teach others how and why it works. This trend of "new media" was what made Poe interesting, said Colin Gordon, who heads the history department.
"He has a wide variety of interests and expertise. He's worked as a journalist, an academic administrator, a visiting professor," Gordon said. "This gave him time to develop as a writer."
After graduating from Grinnell College in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in history and Russian, then earning a Ph.D. in history at the University of California-Berkeley, Poe worked as a lecturer at Harvard University on and off for the next decade.
In 2002, he started working in business development at the *Atlantic Monthly* and became intensely interested in web technologies. He began writing, or "investigating the new species of [web]sites" - such as MySpace, eBay, Craigslist, and of course, Wikipedia.
His writings on Wikipedia led to a book deal with Random House, and he will release a book later this year or early next on the history of communications, titled *Everyone Knows Everything. The Rise of WikiWorld and the Democratization of Knowledge.*
Poe's interest in Wikipedia soon led to other projects. Memoryarchive.org provides a database to collect people's memories about everything; it currently has approximately 1,300 entries.
His other web project has attracted a lot of attention from historians, but Poe hopes it will bridge the gap between authors of history and a more general readership audience. Newbooksinhistory.com hosts podcasts made by Poe, who talks to different authors about their newly published books. The topics range from the Enlightenment to censorship to black history.
Poe recently interviewed a fellow UI history faculty member Kevin Mumford on his book about the controversial history of Newark, N.J.
"[The interview] was really in depth, really smart," Mumford said. "A historian talking to a historian" made for a good interview.
Poe said he wanted to create the website because of the difficulties of marketing an academic book. Academic publishers don't have the big publicity budgets, and when approached, "they were more than happy to let me do it."
"I realized there was an underutilized resource in the academy - professors. We are willing to give the time, and it's [practically] for free," Poe said. He is also helped by an undergraduate research assistant, Stephen Blecha.
In the summer, Poe will experiment with making movies. He will create "historical shorts," short films about different topics in history, possibly presidential elections. These will be uploaded onto a future website, historyshorts.org, and will be most likely integrated in a class in the fall.
While Poe is taking advantage of new techniques, using the Internet and digital technologies in his classes, he still has faith in traditional communication. He simply finds these innovations "more efficient."
"Historically, when a new medium appears, it doesn't displace the old. It's just added on," Poe said. "A hundred years ago, people didn't watch movies because they didn't exist. But [now] people haven't stopped reading."
Copyright 2008 Daily Iowan
Read entire article at Megan Stephenson in the Daily Iowan
A worldwide encyclopedia, created, edited, and used by laypeople - how does that function as an unbiased, reliable database of information?
While the UI history associate professor was researching the history of Wikipedia for the *Atlantic Monthly*, he realized these pseudo-experts had a consistency. All people know something, and they now have a place to share it. The only issue was making sure it was trustworthy.
And that is where people like Poe come in.
"I made my living by authority, and here's Wikipedia," made by people who "don't know anything," he said.
Poe came to embrace Wikipedia, and he uses it in his classes as a way to teach others how and why it works. This trend of "new media" was what made Poe interesting, said Colin Gordon, who heads the history department.
"He has a wide variety of interests and expertise. He's worked as a journalist, an academic administrator, a visiting professor," Gordon said. "This gave him time to develop as a writer."
After graduating from Grinnell College in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in history and Russian, then earning a Ph.D. in history at the University of California-Berkeley, Poe worked as a lecturer at Harvard University on and off for the next decade.
In 2002, he started working in business development at the *Atlantic Monthly* and became intensely interested in web technologies. He began writing, or "investigating the new species of [web]sites" - such as MySpace, eBay, Craigslist, and of course, Wikipedia.
His writings on Wikipedia led to a book deal with Random House, and he will release a book later this year or early next on the history of communications, titled *Everyone Knows Everything. The Rise of WikiWorld and the Democratization of Knowledge.*
Poe's interest in Wikipedia soon led to other projects. Memoryarchive.org provides a database to collect people's memories about everything; it currently has approximately 1,300 entries.
His other web project has attracted a lot of attention from historians, but Poe hopes it will bridge the gap between authors of history and a more general readership audience. Newbooksinhistory.com hosts podcasts made by Poe, who talks to different authors about their newly published books. The topics range from the Enlightenment to censorship to black history.
Poe recently interviewed a fellow UI history faculty member Kevin Mumford on his book about the controversial history of Newark, N.J.
"[The interview] was really in depth, really smart," Mumford said. "A historian talking to a historian" made for a good interview.
Poe said he wanted to create the website because of the difficulties of marketing an academic book. Academic publishers don't have the big publicity budgets, and when approached, "they were more than happy to let me do it."
"I realized there was an underutilized resource in the academy - professors. We are willing to give the time, and it's [practically] for free," Poe said. He is also helped by an undergraduate research assistant, Stephen Blecha.
In the summer, Poe will experiment with making movies. He will create "historical shorts," short films about different topics in history, possibly presidential elections. These will be uploaded onto a future website, historyshorts.org, and will be most likely integrated in a class in the fall.
While Poe is taking advantage of new techniques, using the Internet and digital technologies in his classes, he still has faith in traditional communication. He simply finds these innovations "more efficient."
"Historically, when a new medium appears, it doesn't displace the old. It's just added on," Poe said. "A hundred years ago, people didn't watch movies because they didn't exist. But [now] people haven't stopped reading."
Copyright 2008 Daily Iowan