Week 7: Thing 16 -- Wikis

Before we jump into wikis, I thought you might want to know that you can Simpsonize yourself, as I have above, by visiting the following link. Now, on with the learning...

As I explored some of the wikis, the first connection I made was to the giant clipboard (sometimes a notebook) that has lived at every Reference desk I've ever worked at.

What's included? Just about everything.

Some of the things that make the clipboard such an attractive option (collaborative, continuously-updated, etc.) also make the wiki appealing.

If I may play devil's advocate though, the dangers that the clipboard must be careful of (can quickly become bulky/rudderless/out-of-date, conversation often overtaken by the same handful of contributors so point of view/what's important can become skewed, etc.) are the same dangers that the wiki must watch out for.

I can hear the wiki-acolytes booing and hissing me, but would I be a good librarian if I didn't point out both sides of an issue? I just think that for a wiki to be of value, all members of an organization need the ability to contribute and that this duty brings a new level of trust and responsibility. Folks have to keep entries up-to-date if they are to be useful.

Having said that, I think wikis are super cool. It'd be great to have one on our intranet for the departments to contribute to--a kind of living, breathing policy manual. (That sounded a lot more boring than I intended.)

I explored a few of the ways that folks are using wikis:

Library 2.0 in 15 minutes a day is a great wiki. I checked out a Twitter tutorial. In a few months, Twitter won't be so new and shiny anymore, but there will probably be another interesting 2.0 tool and someone will probably post an article or tutorial on this wiki about it.

SJCPL's subject guides were awesome. I followed the one on Cooking which included virtual book displays with cover images with links directly into the catalog (including one of my favorite reference books Larousse Gastronomique), staff pics, recipes of the month and even info about the hours of their local famers market.

Merlin's wiki learning page provided a couple of good examples of conference wikis which are always helpful. They also gave links to sites where you could play. I set up my own PB wiki in about 5 minutes, but I haven't added content yet.