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.