Week 5, thing#16: Wiki

Library Success: A best practice Wiki has a good design and is comprehensive in tools and guides to help beginners to participate and practice Wiki writing and editing skills. It also provides many resources to help paticipants to sharpen their skills. Librians and staff can use wiki tools to cooperate on various projects. SJCPL Subject Guides is a good example that demonstrates that Library system can develop a wiki page for various projects so they can get input and participation of county residents who are interested in the topics. Participants can add, edit or delete content. Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what has been changed and by whom. Wikis are a great way of collaboratively developing a website, but they are not suitable for every web-based project. While some websites might benefit from the insights of the community, others function better under tighter control. If a library is looking to develop content that requires input from people inside and outside of the library, a wiki is a the ideal tool to solicit that content.

I think we can use wiki tool to make the library's website the online hub of the community with a one-stop-shop for variety of information including but not limited to scheduled programs and workshops. Want to know who the best mechanic is for fixing old Toyotas? Check the automotive reviews on the wiki. Want to know when your child’s next Little League game is? Check the team information page the coach set up on the wiki. Want to find the spiciest Thai food in town? Read the member reviews in the restaurant section. Anyone could add new informative content. The library could team up with other local organizations to develop, maintain and add content to the wiki, but the bulk of the content will come from average member of the community. Opening up a community guide to the public allows a wealth of information to flow in that can make the library’s website a true community resource.

Wikis can also be used internally in libraries. In an average week, the number of emails that travel between colleagues in a library is astounding! When we’re working on a specific project with our colleagues, it can be difficult keep up with the flow of conversation in emails. Wikis are an excellent space for collaborative group work. Everyone can make changes to the wiki. If the group is working on a document, it can be edited in the wiki rather than having different versions of a word processing file going back and forth through email. It’s simply a better way of organizing the group’s efforts and keeping track of where everyone is in the process.

Libraries have increasingly been developing intranets for their staff where the administrators can more easily disseminate information. Making the intranet into a wiki allows both administrators and staff to easily add relevant news and other content. Putting policy and reference manuals into wiki can makes them accessible to all staff members and makes them easy to update on the fly. We don’t have to make every wiki document open to editing by all users of the wiki. We can set up different previlege levels.