The RA Wiki

I have mixed feelings about this wiki for several reasons. On the one hand, this is a great space for staff to share a book/author they think is worthwhile, but the fact that everyone can not only add their own entry, but alter others entries is problematic. It may turn out to work fine in this setting where all of the contributors are fairly homogeneous and well meaning, but in circumstances where that is not the case I think the lack of registration could present problems. The interface here was pretty simple, but a little tricky as well in spots, and it took me a while to figure out that you could fix the editing bar in place while scrolling far down the page. Other than that it worked pretty well and the changes were easy to make (after the edit bar thing).

Tagging was not really useful in this instance, since there is no way to really tag each entry without just putting it at the end as many people did. (Tags: Sci-Fi, Space, etc.) Because you can see most of the stuff that would be in the tags in the main entry it seemed kind of pointless. By the same token, if you were to add all the collected tags from each entry to the entire page, you would have a huge mish mash of tags that would perhaps aid searching, but would create many false hits as well.

Wikiworld

Wikis, in my humble opinion, are cool as all get out... I love that you can so easily create and maintain a web space that can be used collaboratively with others. The possibilities for their usefulness are wide and really only limited by our own imaginations, especially in the library setting. Obviously the examples shown in this exercise provide a good cross sampling of some of these many uses, and highlight the ways in which wikis can be used as collaborative tools to enhance productivity and enrich library services. I particularly like the Princeton RA wiki and the Library Success wiki because they are wonderful examples of this collaborative spirit at work.

In the Library Success wiki, we as librarians find both a portal for exploring what others in the profession find works well for them, and a forum for contributing to that discussion as well. Similarly, the Princeton RA wiki provides a space for that community to share their reading suggestions and to link to library materials and services in unique ways. Both wikis require passwords to edit content as well, so there is a fair degree of control over the content that is included on their site. I am excited that we have begun to use wikis for our system, even if they are still kind of unofficial from what I understand, and look forward to reaping the rewards of the collaborative interaction that they offer.