Saturday, May 9, 2009

Say "wiki" 3 times fast and you sound like you need WD-40

First assignment is to explore 3 wikis. I looked at the pathfinder site for St. Joseph County Public Library, and I chose the Finding Birth Families pathfinder because it is a subject near and dear to my family. My eldest nephew, Alex, is adopted, and three of my cousins are adopted. I really like the layout of the page, the variety of information formats, and that I could tell the information was recently updated.


I next looked at the Blogging Libraries wiki. I was hoping to see a listing for the libraries in towns where I have lived (besides Central's), but I didn't. Oh well. I wanted to see what was being done to serve communities that I was well familiar with instead of just picking a random one, but it is still useful.


Then I looked at the Library Success: Best Practices wiki. I am going to have to delve into this deeper. It looks really interesting, and, looking at the wiki user list, I saw some names that I recognize from listservs, journals, or other professional sources. (I was also secretly hoping to see the names of some of my FSU classmates, but I did not recognize any.)



I was trying to think of ways SPL could benefit from a wiki for staff. Splat articles are static but can be taken down and then newer versions put up relatively quickly. I know some of us who would not mind the ability to go in and correct the spelling or grammar on a form or article, though. To my knowledge, sharepoint is the closest thing we have now to a wiki, but, if there is someone who uses it regularly, I don't know about it. Most people view it as one more thing to log into and ignore it unless it is absolutely necessary. If we do start a wiki, it should be somehow prominently featured on splat so it does not get lost in all the other things.

1 comment:

  1. What about a wiki for the public? We could post descriptions and instructions for our databases, managing patron accounts - especially the new features like usernames and lists, or make topical information available quickly - think jobsearching, unemployment, mortgages ... (Marketing, are you reading this?)

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