Thing #16 A “quick” post about Wikis

In Hawaiian, wiki means “quick”. Ward Cunningham developed the first wiki in 1994, the concept named after the Wiki Wiki bus at the Honolulu International Airport that runs between the airport terminals (Wikipedia).

Wikis are the tool of a democratic web. They allow people to collaborate/participate in creating a web presence to meet a particular need, or for specific purposes. Control is in the hands of many. A wiki is not static: it gains value the more it is added to. Meredith Farkas (who I found is a key voice/player in discussions about Wikis) writes in an article on Web Junction, “Using Wikis to Create Online Communities”, ‘The possibilities for what libraries can do with wikis are endless. At their least, they are spaces for quick and easy collaborative work. At their best, they can become true community resources that can position the library as a [sic.] an online hub of their local community’.

In academic libraries, I can see wikis being useful for project work, saving a mountain of e-mails between participants, being able to flesh out proposals that everyone is happy with and having all the information in one place. That you can also see previous edits, is valuable for this endeavour. They would also be good a way to maintain library instruction manuals or procedures. This would particularly require library staff buy-in to ensure it would be updated when necessary, because of its “long-term” nature. Subject guides is interesting. I can see why a wiki could be valuable here, because new resources always present themselves and others become obsolete. But I’m not sure if libraries could allow something like this to be truly collaborative: if so, these could become a glut of unorganised information. Tools such as the Web 2.0 subject guide tools I discussed in an earlier post and del.icio.us are probably better alternatives.

I understand that there is the possibility of chaos if you allow anyone to edit web pages and so this is a “con” in the discussion of wikis as a collaborative tool and I agree that in certain circumstances this would be true, but for example, a library project wiki should only be available on the private library intranet for those interested staff to participate in. And when a wiki is initially set up, it should still have a purpose and so parameters/initial points to stimulate discussion should be set by the person who originates the wiki.

I had heard about the Library Success wiki, as a place for libraries to share ideas and information about library issues. It saves duplicating effort, if you can find some good resources to start you on a journey of further discovery. Now I have seen it and I love it. Our profession is one that helps people, and has very rich professional connections, so what a great use of a wiki!

I can think of a way to use a wiki in my library in the future and Helene Blowers has provided some great starter resources on the 23 things blog. Shh! It’s a secret.