Google wants to Knol everything

Google has announced through a blog: (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/),
that it is prepared to begin creating and testing "Knol," their step into the wiki arena. The differences between Google's wiki and, say, Wikipedia, is that Google plans to ask organizations that already grant authority through peer-review process (such as the University of Illinois Press (http://www.press.uillinois.edu)), to have their author/authorities write Knols in their areas of expertise. As they did with Gmail, Google will eventually release the Knol for public participation. Unlike collectively-owned and compiled wikis, it appears that Knol's authors will maintain control over their content.

This is an area that I had hoped large professional organizations would step into after listening to a presentation by Karen Williams at the University of Minnesota libraries this summer at AAUP (see http://www.lib.umn.edu/about/mellon/docs.phtml for a description of her project). It makes sense for subject-focused associations to create Web 2.0+ spaces for their memberships, since networking is supposed to be their mission. It would be equally logical for University Libraries to create spaces for their users. There are even professional organizations and consortia in place that could pool their resources to make these spaces large enough to be useful for all stakeholders.

Instead, Big Brother Google's idea seems to combine the ease of Wikipedia with the authority of MedLine Plus, government, university, museum, or other "authoritative" websites. However, instead of training students and citizens to discover who has or should have authority on any given subject, Google will use some of their friendly algorithms to decide that for us. Authors can also decide to participate in a Google advertising program to make money from their works.

Do I expect that the University of Illinois Press will participate as an invited publisher? I can't see why we wouldn't. In fact, getting in on the ground floor of projects like this is imperative for our continued existence over the next five, ten, and twenty years. I think we also need to have ongoing conversations with our friends in libraries and professional associations about this project and its goals, as well as its implications for the future of pedagogy and authority.