Week 7, Thing 16: Wikis

I had heard about wikis, but now I have a much better understanding about what they really are: a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows people to add, remove and edit content very easily. I learned that wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian. You don't have to be an html expert to make changes to the wiki either: simple syntax will do just fine. And there are some disadvantages to wikis: they could be too open, disorganized, and they could be victims of vandalism and spam. Libraries can use wikis in many ways. They could be used to create a subject guide-which could be edited by anyone. People could add to the collection of useful resources and take out dead links. They can be used to annotate a catalog, or as a community wiki-in which people could write all kinds of information about their community that may be of interest to others. And librarians working on a document could use a wiki because they could make changes very easily without having to e-mail each other back and forth. Wikis could also be used as an intranet within libraries. I took a look at Book Lovers Wikis-which is a great site in which people post online book reviews in all different categories. Library 2.0 in 15 Minutes a Day presents lots of tips in doing a 2.0 program. And ALA 2006 New Orleans Wiki shows a great use of making a wiki which people can constantly add and edit info. about a conference. Very interesting!