Some of the specific positive uses of wikis discussed included the following:
- instruction available ubiquitously
- forms a natural platform for virtual reference
- information desk management
- supplementing library digital content and electronic resources
- built in user feedback mechanisms can increase patron communication
- collaboration allows students, professors, and information specialists to integrate their own suggestions and perspectives in one place
- links and other resources can be suggested and added by a variety of sources
- editing history can be monitored for recency and reliability purposes
I have also seen this principle in one of the professional committees I am serving on currently. The Florida Association for Media in Education (FAME) has an award committee named the Teens Read Committee, whose yearly task involves choosing 10-15 books to be selected for consideration for the Florida Teens Read award. This year we have implemented a wiki to record books read and recommended, as well as how many of us have read each, in order to comply with the standards that must be followed for selection. The amount of increased communication, participation, and interest is clearly visible, even in the ten weeks since we started it.
As amazing as wikis can be, there are also some issues to be faced. The first is adequate user knowledge, or the need to promote the location and familiarity of the wiki with the intended users. The best wikis are the ones that are constantly changing because of interaction, correction, updates, and commenting. This stream of adjustment is the reason wikis are so fantastic as collaborating tools.
A second is the need for contributor training. Like many other professionals, most librarians do not have the time to experiment in order to implement new practices like this kind of wiki. In order to provide additional support after initial training, FSU developed some best practices that could be resources to librarians learning how to manipulate the wikis to their best advantage. These included:
- Using "super pages" as ideas and springboards for their individual or subject oriented pages. This provided librarians with code to copy and inspiration for both professional and personal expression.
- The administrators of the project developed a prototype for academic guides. These migrated to the wikis after both paper and electronic formats, for easier updating and anytime, anywhere access.
Jackson, M., Blackburn, J. D., & McDonald, R. H. (2007). MediaWiki Open-Source Software As Infrastructure for Electronic Resources Outreach. The Reference Librarian, 48(1). Retrieved June 12, 2008, from the WilsonWeb database.
3 comments:
You make some good points about wikis in this post. I particularly like your comments on the need for organizational tools like super pages that will allow for a better organization of the information contained in the wiki. There seems little point to keeping huge amounts of information without any structured organization - it seems to me to be equivalent to piling all the pages of every book in a library in a room rather than keeping them bound and organized on the shelves.
We can't fool teens on recommendations for books. Either we're on it, or we're not. Since you clearly explained how authorship is handled on the library wiki, teens can remain anonymous, but still gain the information.
Explaining how a wiki can work on the academic level tells me that someone cares about positive student/library relationships. Thanks for the heads-up.
Cheryl Myers
In my second job (part time) I work for a large company that contract most of its labor. We all work on the same team, but we live all over the world. Members of my team live in India, Australia, Germany, Venezuela, England and Canada. This year we started using a wiki to share and keep track of the data we all must manipulate. I definitely have seen all the advantages you mention in this post.
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