I think wikis are among the more potentially useful things we've explored. I found a couple of particularly interesting wikis out there:
- LISWiki - A wiki of all things library and information science, it has everything from encyclopedia-type articles to information on how various libraries handle common issues (cell phones in libraries for example). The wiki fairly new, and so many of the articles are somewhat basic, but it's interesting nonetheless..
- ShareILL - This one is great! Intended for anyone working with interlibrary loan, this wiki covers a variety of topics. Tips on finding those hard-to-find items a library user wants, information on ILL software and codes, and ILL-related conferences are all covered here.
It seems like there are a number of ways wikis could be useful in the library/ITS:
- A wiki for staff to share information or ideas, for example a reference wiki which would include noteworthy reference questions, sources of information, etc. Or an ITS wiki where useful information could be posted (for example, "how to change a Blackboard password").
- Subject guide wikis where librarians could provide some starting points, and library users could add sources they found useful, or add notes to existing links.
- Some libraries have ventured toward enabling library users to annotate or tag their OPAC. This is a really fascinating concept, although this is a point where the lack of control involved makes me shudder. But I could also see it creating a much more useful OPAC, if it was done well...
I think I might actually work on creating a wiki one of these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment