Sally Duncan: No

ALTHOUGH I think in many instances the articles on Wikipedia are very well written by eminent people, we have reservations about it.

The information must always be taken with a pinch of salt, and we would always suggest that students using the website back it up with other resources. A process of checks and balances is very important when using a site like Wikipedia.

They can't take it at face value, but carry out research around it, and make sure the people who've written the entries are eminent in their field. I certainly wouldn't stop young people using it. It's a resource to use, but not on its own.

Any resources which are in school libraries should have been checked by the librarian and can usually be trusted because they've been through that filtering system.

What's happening now is that when children are researching something they'll go straight to the internet rather than to a book, which is what they would have done 10 years ago.

But books still have a very strong place in our system, in that there are checks and balances - the information has been submitted to a publisher for approval and editing, and then accepted by a school librarian, who wants to ensure that young people in their school have a well-rounded view of the area they are researching.

Teachers themselves will often insist that there are multiple resources in the bibliography at the end of a student's piece of work, whether the source is a book, a journal, or a website.

• Sally Duncan is assistant director of the School Library Association