I'm excited! Wikis have been around for ages (oh my, we're told they were created in 1994... that's the dark ages in terms of web 2.0) but now's the chance to really look into how they are being used in the library world. I use Wikipedia a lot - yes I know it is unreliable, but I find it really useful for a quick introduction to a topic. I haven't used wikis in my library work yet so I will blog about what I have seen and liked.
I took a look at PBworks and liked the idea of using wikis for "Patron service" (i.e. publishing information about new acquisitions). Currently we have the RSS feed for our new acquisitions but this only shows up cataloguing activity from the day before and some of this is re-cataloguing rather than new books. A weekly list of just our newest books would be much more useful to our readers, so perhaps we could use a wiki for this. The Grand Rapids Library has used it's wiki pages to create a very attractive "recommended reads" section, with images of book covers (once you get past the dry initial page of lists of links).
I've also logged onto the Teachmeet wiki site, which is great. It's like a Google Doc, but a website instead. I've added my name to the 'lurkers' section and resisted the urge to add pictures and change the start time to 5.15pm - there's no way I can get to the event for the current start time because I am at my desk until 5pm! The great advantage of wikis is that you can create collaborative sites, but the disadvantage is that this can be open to abuse. That seems to me to be a problem with wiki pages - if you are allowed to edit the document, then you can edit WHATEVER you like. I've heard that Wikipedia spends a lot of time changing things back on controversial pages. So like Wikipedia, if you open up your wiki site to everybody, then you have to set aside time to monitor it.
I took a look at PBworks and liked the idea of using wikis for "Patron service" (i.e. publishing information about new acquisitions). Currently we have the RSS feed for our new acquisitions but this only shows up cataloguing activity from the day before and some of this is re-cataloguing rather than new books. A weekly list of just our newest books would be much more useful to our readers, so perhaps we could use a wiki for this. The Grand Rapids Library has used it's wiki pages to create a very attractive "recommended reads" section, with images of book covers (once you get past the dry initial page of lists of links).
I've also logged onto the Teachmeet wiki site, which is great. It's like a Google Doc, but a website instead. I've added my name to the 'lurkers' section and resisted the urge to add pictures and change the start time to 5.15pm - there's no way I can get to the event for the current start time because I am at my desk until 5pm! The great advantage of wikis is that you can create collaborative sites, but the disadvantage is that this can be open to abuse. That seems to me to be a problem with wiki pages - if you are allowed to edit the document, then you can edit WHATEVER you like. I've heard that Wikipedia spends a lot of time changing things back on controversial pages. So like Wikipedia, if you open up your wiki site to everybody, then you have to set aside time to monitor it.
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