Wikipedia, one of the world’s most popular websites, owes its success to its authors – i.e. to all of us. But how do we know if the information it offers is reliable?

Lexical knowledge sources are indispensable for research, education and general information. The transition of the reference works to the digital world has been a gradual one. This paper discusses the basic principles and structure of knowledge presentation, as well as user access and knowledge acquisition with specific consideration of contributions in German. The ideal reference works of the future should be interactive, optimally adapted to the user, reliable, current and quotable.