Wikis for libraries
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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Introduction: "A little on gardening ..."
This presentation is geared toward those who have little experience with wikis. When I'm learning something new, a metaphor often helps. Maybe this one's a little hokey ;) but here goes ... To me, learning is about seeking out new ideas, choosing the best and most appealing ones, and developing them. I like to think of this as planting seeds in a garden. Each seed needs appropriate nutrients to grow into a unique plant. A good gardener always helps. Here, I offer some seeds and tools and an invitation to you to become wiki gardeners. I'll try to provide some background, a few guidelines, and a range of tools and resources you can choose from to set out on your own explorations. I provide three examples of websites I created with wikis that you can examine and hopefully learn from.
Wikis as social software
Wiki Gardening 101: The word "wiki" comes from wiki-wiki, meaning "quick" in Hawaiian. Using wiki-style collaborative software, new pages are easy to create. Formatting rules use simple combinations of asterisks, brackets, equals signs, single quotes, etc., and require no knowledge of HTML. That anyone can edit any page gives tremendous power and freedom to all users of wiki websites. The new participatory online spaces supported by wikis are very much in tune with our user-centered services.
Traditional library functions are systems-oriented
- Catalog
- Interlibrary loan
- Electronic reserves
- Abstracting and indexing databases
Library 2.0 is participatory, supported by social software
Librarians in all types of libraries are using wikis to fill the needs of particular groups -- from staff wikis to support operations, to librarian-user created subject guides, to full-scale library websites, to national conference wikis. Here are some to explore that use a popular hosted wiki, PBwiki, and a wiki installed on the library's server, MediaWiki. We'll get to hosted and installed wikis in a moment.
Library & librarian uses of PBwiki
Public libraries
- *Book club: Princeton Public Library BookLoversWiki
- Strategic plan: Durham County Library Strategic Plan
- *Staff wiki: albystaff: Albany County Public Library staff wiki
- New books list: Provo City Library Recent Additions
School libraries
- *Elementary school library website: Melissa Rentchler
- Junior high school library website: École Charleswood Junior High Library
- Teacher professional development & collaboration: Joyce Valenza started this teacherlibrarianwiki
Academic libraries
- Gonzaga University: Foley Center Library Wiki
- College policy manual: Policies and Procedures for the North Metro Technical College Library
Special libraries
- Reference librarians' wiki: The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale Librarians PBwiki
- Collaboratively created wiki library: Islands Institute Library
Conferences
- unconferencewalibrary - wiki for Library 2.0 on the loose: an unofficial unconference for Western Australian libraryland
Professional organizations
- ALA-APA Union Wiki American Library Association-Allied Professional Association: the Organization for the Advancement of Library Employees (ALA-APA) advocates for and supports library employees in seeking equitable compensation.
Library & librarian uses of MediaWiki
Public libraries
- St. Joseph County Public Library Subject Guides are research guides for various topics; a review of this by David Lee King.
Academic libraries
- *Ohio University Libraries Biz Wiki provides research guides for business topics, editable by users.
- University of Houston Libraries Web Site Policies and Procedures Policies and Procedures for the UH Libraries website, collected and maintained as a wiki.
- *PmWiki, not MediaWiki: USC Aiken Gregg-Graniteville Library has built their website entirely with a wiki.
Conferences
- ALA Midwinter 2007 Seattle wiki is an example of a wiki created to support a specific event.
Professional development
- *Library Success: A best practices wiki was created by Meredith Farkas (Information Wants to Be Free) "to be a collaborative space for librarians to share success stories and inspire each other to do great things in our own libraries."
- Library Instruction Wiki is a space for collecting web links, hand-outs, and success stories about providing information literacy instruction.
LIS encyclopedia
- LISWiki is a nonprofit, collaborative effort to create an LIS encyclopedia by the wider LIS community.
