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Welcome to the companion website for this session of the Minnesota Library Association Conference, October 24-26, 2007, Midwest Wireless Civic Center, Mankato Minnesota.

Presenter: Joyce Yukawa, Assistant Professor, MLIS Program, College of St. Catherine

Brief description: Wikis enable anyone to quickly and collaboratively create web pages, making them ideal for libraries wishing to create a web presence and engage in online community building with minimal resources. Using the example of a fictional library, we will examine how a library can build its own website using a simple free wiki that requires no installation (PBwiki), as well as the free, open source software MediaWiki (used by Wikipedia). Issues covered: wikis as social software, advantages and disadvantages of using wikis, designing for users, security, and training. The primary aim is to provide usable information for those with little or no experience using wikis.

Acknowledgments: This is a demonstration site used for instructional purposes, not the site of an actual library. I gratefully acknowledge the following libraries from whose websites I borrowed content (credited throughout this site): Hennepin County Library, Minneapolis Public Library, Ann Arbor District Library, Athens County Public Libraries, and Internet Public Library. I would also like to thank the wonderful folks from SSPIN (Support Staff & Paraprofessionals Interest sectioN) for sponsoring this presentation.

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I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges