My favorite wikis that were on the browsing list were the BookLovers and the pathfinders wiki. Having a book suggestion wiki would be great for a library (especially one as big as SJPL) because you'll be able to get such a wide variety of titles. I also liked the pathfinders wiki for the same reason: having the brains of 100 librarians is much more useful than only one (even if that one librarian is awesome). Our Youth Services wiki has also become a great tool for SJPL because of the reason stated above, AND I like the fact that our email boxes don't have to be loaded with huge files... we can just say, "download the form from the wiki!"
But of course, being good for one thing, usually means it is not the best idea for another. When I worked at a high school library, I noticed that many students who would do web searches for reserach would use Wikipedia as a source (mostly because it would be one of the first results). It was really hard to convince students that Wikipedia can be a bad source for information due to the fact that it can be edited by anyone (well, almost anyone). The librarian and I ended up incorporating Wikipedia into our regular "how to find reliable resources on the Internet" lesson.
Overall, I really do like how wikis work. It allows for everyone to participate in sharing information and like the VST said, most wiki providers make it so user friendly, the technology barrier does not seem as large.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It's amazing how kids don't understand the difference between a wiki and a reliable resource. Recently I had a young customer who kept telling me she couldn't use any online subscription databases because her teacher said not to use wikis. Somehow the kid had decided that anything dealing with a computer must be suspect. Aaaargh!
Post a Comment