Thing #17

Wikis

So wiki means fast. I never bothered to figure out why they were called that.

I guess I haven't ever cared enough to actually use them for contributing information until a few months ago. The first wiki I edited was the Nebraska Library Camp wiki, a wiki for a day-long meeting in November where participants got to brainstorm ahead of time and store the meeting's revelations for later user.

But I think wikis are great places to find information. I'm not a big fan of wikipedia, because of the usual credibility issues cited by academics but it sure can be fun to read and it's a good place to go first instead of doing a blind google search like if you want to find an actor's birthday.

The Web Junction piece neatly outlined the potential uses and their point about private property notions vs. completely open access is important. Also, the idea that a wiki is in theory a consensus was interesting.

The biggest advantage to a wiki is that it makes it easy to throw something up on the web where lots can access it and non-techy people can edit. I took basic HTML coding as a freshman in college and things have changed a lot since then in terms of how easy it has become. It's great to also eliminate countless emails that take up inbox space and are hard to follow after so long.

As far as uses are concerned, I like their application was subject guides because it makes it so easy to just add in a new link or update an existing link on a page. The Library Success wiki is also cool because it is a place to post and get ideas from others and in theory you should be able to contact who the idea originated with since they have edited the wiki and that information is open.

The potential to fix broken links is very useful. Too many older websites have broken links and sure you can email the webmaster but that doesn't mean the link will get updated or removed. As an active user of a wiki you can take responsibility for fixing any dead links you find. I did that today on several pages I was reading.

I've also created a project management wiki at work for our library tutorials and library instruction. I'm in charge of the project and all library staff are members of the wiki although 4 of us make up the core of people working on the project. I've been struggling with how to be the project leader and yet encourage collaboration, particularly with the possibility of varying access levels. Unfortunately my wiki hosting site, Wetpaint doesn't allow you to control access at the item/document/page level. Each user has one set of permissions for the entire wiki. I'm thinking there are some pages I'd only like to be able to edit, while others could be for anyone so I may need to migrate the wiki over to another space.

And we are discussing creating a continuity of operations plan. The wiki format would be a great place to store all the info (in addition to hard copy for safety reasons) and where it could easily be updated as processes change.

Here's one of my favorite non-library wikis for They Might Be Giants fans.