Tame The Web

Will Richardson spoke about Wikis @ Your Library and it was one of my most anticipated sessions. I am currently working a s a Research assistant for UNT to set up a wiki for the Info Science Doc students to build our own spot of collaborative discusions, entries and data. (I am sorry I haven’t written much about my studies this semester…a lot has been happening!)

Will said a Wiki is a difficult thing to define. But he did an excellent job: “Sometimes chaotic, sometimes amazing tool to create collaborative content on the Internet. A wiki is something anyone can edit at anytime. A tool of the read/write Web.” (I love that term!)

He noted the huge increase in Podcasting (6 months ago from 1 to 4000 podcasts) and Photo blogging. “The everyday creation of content by everyday people.”

Why wikis at your library?

Easy creation
Small elarning curve
Easy collaboration
Easy information storage
Easy retrieval
Easy tracking

Keys to Success:

Effective structure
Monitioring content
Consistency with names of pages
Active participation

Resources:

Seedwiki.com
Xwiki.com
wikicities.com

I’ve been pondering wiki use in libraries since Will’s talk.

http://www.lisnews.com/~Blake/journal/2909

Please read Blake’s wrap up and pay special attention to the last bit that I quote here:

The ?core Bloggers? thing was surprisingly divisive at the conference and apparently outside as well. As Bloggers (Core or not, I was not) I think we need to talk about what we do and look at how we do things more and talk about ourselves less. What was being done from the conference was a great beginning, an amazing 1.0 of conference blogging.. Let?s look at how we did things and look for the next step. Stephen Abram said something about the Sirsi sales crew working the booth being in ?today? and being VP of Innovation, his job was to be in 10 years from now, and I hope a blogger will take the lead on being the VP of Innovation for the LIS Core Bloggers. Let?s begin by asking some big questions. How do we work together, how do we improve what we write, can we do some real reporting and is what we do fit for print, or would anyone want to read what we do in print. As Andrea would say, we need to be more meta, less focused on ?me?, and more focused on ?us? and what we can really do for each other and our profession. How do we move beyond what we do now and into something else?

Well said Blake! What will future conference blogging experiences be like?

Aaron just put it up over at walkingpaper.org!

http://www.walkingpaper.org/presentation/IM_CIL2005.pdf

Chad has posted final thoughts…

Nice to meet you Chad!

http://www.skagirlie.net/wpblog/index.php?p=154

Oh! And she’s the one that gave me the shirt ~ Thanks Skagirlie!! Glad you were at CIL!

After 3 workshops, two presentations and going to a bunch of great sessions as well as hanging with amd meeting some very cool library folk ..I’m home with my boys. And I’m exhausted. I’ll be posting notes and thoughts tomorrow. I hope all CIL 2005 attendees, bloggers, presenters, vendors and organizers are home safe and sound!

We are doing a live demonstration of Weblogging for Organizations!!

I had the honor of meeting Will Richardson Thursday! Here’s his post about his travels and teaching: http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2005/03/18#a3267