What is written about the wiki tells me it “allows people with great ideas to be included in the decision-making process.” It is democratic. In a library environment this might seem to fly in the face of “authority control” of processes, nomenclatures or accepted terms and languages. And how does a library help me find “the best mechanic” or Thai food, when the basis for this information may be largely anecdotal or opinion-based? Linking people and information doesn’t tell you what the quality of the information is.
Image information at right:
But I like the idea of the library catalog having a “wiki functionality” allowing anyone to add a review or keyword or tag to make the catalog more valuable to those who are searching within a particular genre or looking for a new author. And I like the Library Success Best Practices Wiki suggestion of using the wiki idea to link Library patrons, all waiting for the same book, to discuss it online. I wasn’t sure about the suggestion that they pass it among themselves rather than returning it to the library though. I also like the Princeton Public Library Booklover’s Wiki which offers prizes to motivate its customer reviewers. Sometimes just the impetus a reader needs is a word-of-mouth recommendation that someone else liked a book or movie or found an online resource trustworthy.
The Library Success Best Practices Wiki at http://www.libsuccess.org is a veritable feast of information that is inspiring in its scope. It was originally created by Meredith Farkas and is available to attribute and share for noncommercial use under a Creative Commons License. So even though it is rich in content, it is a work in progress, and contains the opinions of many different people.
I checked out http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wiki/ from an ALA conference in Chicago, sharing such things as lodging, dining, city transportation, views, and museums. I can see library patrons similarly adding their information on best places in their library for wifi, or the nearest café, quietest places, most comfy chair, best light, best area for kids to play without disturbing others, etc. On a different level, I can see Community Service organizations in an area having access to the Library’s wiki in order to maintain current information on services, contact numbers, deadlines and special offerings such as testing opportunities, flu shot clinics, bus tickets, etc. In times of crisis, (hurricane, flood, earthquake) these centralized bulletin boards could be relied on as tried and true lines of communication.
Wikis do indeed allow group efforts to be organized. Still, some wikis I have seen sometimes seem very disorganized. Since anyone can edit, point of view and “tone of voice” could mar the collaborative goal, and though the term “neutral point of view” was applauded as a goal by some sources, that doesn’t seem possible or even realistic in some cases. (An internal Staff wiki would necessarily have a very definite point of view.)
With a common goal as the ideal, there would of necessity be a bias toward one point of view at the expense of others, however polite the discussion.
The Library Success Best Practices Wiki at http://www.libsuccess.org is a veritable feast of information that is inspiring in its scope. It was originally created by Meredith Farkas and is available to attribute and share for noncommercial use under a Creative Commons License. So even though it is rich in content, it is a work in progress, and contains the opinions of many different people.
I checked out http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wiki/ from an ALA conference in Chicago, sharing such things as lodging, dining, city transportation, views, and museums. I can see library patrons similarly adding their information on best places in their library for wifi, or the nearest café, quietest places, most comfy chair, best light, best area for kids to play without disturbing others, etc. On a different level, I can see Community Service organizations in an area having access to the Library’s wiki in order to maintain current information on services, contact numbers, deadlines and special offerings such as testing opportunities, flu shot clinics, bus tickets, etc. In times of crisis, (hurricane, flood, earthquake) these centralized bulletin boards could be relied on as tried and true lines of communication.
Wikis do indeed allow group efforts to be organized. Still, some wikis I have seen sometimes seem very disorganized. Since anyone can edit, point of view and “tone of voice” could mar the collaborative goal, and though the term “neutral point of view” was applauded as a goal by some sources, that doesn’t seem possible or even realistic in some cases. (An internal Staff wiki would necessarily have a very definite point of view.)
With a common goal as the ideal, there would of necessity be a bias toward one point of view at the expense of others, however polite the discussion.
Lastly, I include the link to a Wikipedia discussion among a group of Chemical engineers whose rhetoric becomes less than cordial in their effort to agree on wiki content. The Graphic at the top of this article was accessed via this site also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Linas/Archive10
There is still a lot to think about here.
There is still a lot to think about here.
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