Advantages & disadvantages
From Library Demo Site
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Using Wikis to Build Library Web Spaces
Joyce Yukawa, MLIS Program, College of St. Catherine
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| About this presentation · Wikis for libraries · Creating wiki spaces · Tools and resources |
| Wikis for libraries |
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Advantages and disadvantages of wikis
Wikis can support our user-centered services, taking them from the face-to-face environment to the web. Wikis help "democratize" the web, putting creation in the hands of potentially everyone. This is the object of some heated debate today.
Basic philosophy of wikis
- User trust
- Collective intelligence (the wisdom of crowds) through collaboration and sharing of information
- Continually evolving based on user expectations
- Community building through social networking
- "Humanizes" technology because users and librarians speak in their own personal voices
What do wikis provide?
- Easy to learn and use. No HTML knowledge is necessary.
- Provides some elements of structure.
- Allows many people to edit pages and create new pages.
- Frees information from getting buried in emails, locked into file systems.
- Available 24/7.
- Highly flexible and customizable.
- Free or a fraction of the cost of most enterprise software.
- Can be a testbed for new site ideas or a bridge to more sophisticated programming knowledge.
Down side of wikis
- Mob thinking
- The cult of the amateur by Andrew Keen
- High transparency leads to loss of privacy
- Simple formatting puts limits on the complexity and sophistication of web pages
- Without careful planning, design, and maintenance, wikis deteriorate into chaos
- Vulnerable to vandalism and other socially irresponsible behavior
In short
- Wikis and other social software are empowering (for better or worse, depending on your point of view)
- Wikis and other social software are unstructured (wiki content is only as well managed and writing is only as articulate as the effort that goes into it)
