Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.
Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:
Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:
- Anyone (registered or unregistered, if the wiki is unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
- Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
- Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.
- And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.
The use of wikis has grown and libraries have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.
Discovery Resources:
Browse through these resources to learn more about wikis:
- Wiki, wiki, wiki - from PLCMC's own Core Compentency blog
- Wiki’s: A Beginner’s Look – an excellent short slide presentation that offers a short introduction and examples.
- Using Wikis to Create Online Communities – a good overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.
- Read Peter Blake's paper from the Information Online 2007 conference
Using a Wiki for InformationServices: Principles and Practicalities
Peter Blake, Australian Catholic University
- For this discovery exercise, take a look at some library wikis and blog about your finding. Here’s a few examples to get you started:
- SJCPL Subject Guides – a pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system
- Book Lovers Wiki - developed by the Princeton Public Library
- Library Success: A best practices wiki
- SLVTraining Wiki - Mark Showalter's wiki of online resources used in Internet Searching training
- AGLIN - Australian Government Libraries Information Network website is operated from and maintained on a wiki
- Other library wiki examples
- Create a blog post about your findings. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries and/or at the SLV might work well with a wiki? Are there disadvantages in using a wiki application? Where may the use not be valid?
2 comments:
At last, someone has explained the origin of the word "wiki" (Angela Kille, a student at the University of Texas) - it is a Hawaiian word for "quick". But I am not being quick about my learning, nor do I yet understand the value of anyone who wants to contribute to a wiki being able to edit or throw out what someone else has contributed. Why is that person's contribution any more valid than the first person's?
But I have found Mark Showalter's list of search engines on Zoho quite useful for reference inquiries, and I can see the value of AID @ SLV creating a data-base of FAQs and other inquiries - anything to replace RimR with something more useful!
Thanks for the Discovery Resources & Exercise. I can now have a think about placing some content on the SLV Wiki.
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