#15 - Wikis and how libraries are using them

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools, but with benefits that wikis provide, the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

Some of the benefits that make the use of wikis so attractive are:

• Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
• Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
• Earlier versions of a page can be rolled back and viewed when needed.
• Users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.
  

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have started to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.

Discovery Resources:

Use these resources to learn more about wikis:

Wikis in Plain English - video that describes what a wiki is and how it can be used in easy to understand terms

Wiki, wiki, wiki - from the Core Compentency blog of the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County.

Wikis: A Beginner’s Look – an excellent short slide presentation that offers a short introduction and examples.

What is a Wiki? – Library Success wiki presentation.

Using Wikis to Create Online Communities – a good overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.

Discovery Exercise:
1. Take a look at some ways libraries and schools are using wikis.

• 10 reasons why your next pathfinder should be a wiki - blog posting from the Neverending Search blog by Joyce Valenza
  
  
• SJCPL Subject Guides – a pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system.
  
  
• Book Lovers Wiki - developed by the Princeton Public Library.
  
  
• Library Success: A best practices wiki
  
  
• CSLA Conference 2007 wiki – an example of a wiki created to support a specific event.
  
  
• Mesquite ISD Library Policies and Procedures – an example of a wiki created for library staff to document procedures.
  
  
• Westwood Schools Computer Science class wiki
  
  
• Sample Literary Circle Wiki (10th Grade English)
  
  
• Sample AP World History Wiki
  
  
• TeacherLibrarian wiki
  
  
• Welker's Wikinomics - winner of the 2007 Edublog Award for Best Educational Wiki .
  
  
• WikiEducator - free e-learning content

• Texas School Librarians' Wikispace
  

2. There are many sites where you can create a free wiki of your own. Here are three that offer ad-free wikis to educators.

PBWiki
Wetpaint
Wikispaces

3. Create a blog post detailing your thoughts about wikis. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries and schools might work well with a wiki?

[Note: Please remember to include THING# in your heading posts.]