Wikis

Wikis are one type of technology which I have used before. However, I’ve never found them quite as useful as they appear to be. The ‘Wikis in plain English’ video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY said that it removed the need for e-mail for planning, for example, a camping trip. This is possible, if the people using the wikis are all very familiar with the technology. Whenever I’ve used wikis, all the people involved have e-mailed each other to say that they’ve put something new onto the wiki, which reduces the advantages of the wiki.

I really like the idea of having book reviews on a library wiki- borrowers would be able to contribute and read lots of reviews. It could easily become overloaded- as long as someone (such as a librarian) kept track of the reviews being put into simple categories such as detective fiction, picture books, biographies etc, it would be a great resource for a library.

I looked at the wiki http://www.libsuccess.org which has already become a favourite. It’s library staff from all over the world sharing ideas about programs, marketing, products and so much more. The great thing is that the more people who find and add to the wiki, the better it will get. Also, as anyone can contribute, it’s not dependent on a company continuing to run them. It’s dependent only on people contributing.