My Wiki Walk

Last night I almost did myself in reading through the “Discovery Resources” and then touring the suggested wikis. I should have spread the fun out over a couple of days and saved myself the agony of information overload but that’s me. Just dive right in . . . and sink. Now that I’ve had 24 hours to digest it I think it’s all making sense. These are my observations -

The Bull Run Library wiki and the Book Lovers Wiki were my favorites wikis. The first because it was created by and for the patrons of The Bull Run Library. How great is that? The layout is very simple and uncluttered and right there on the front page is a big welcome to PLCMC 2.0 participants! I just had to sign the guest book and say thanks. The Princeton Public Library has a featured book review at the top of their front page and that grabbed my attention right away. An index of reviews is the next thing you see and their first category is “5 star reviews.” The remaining list is broken down into genres. Again I was drawn to the clean, user friendly layout.

Meredith Farkas’ article “Using Wikis to Create Online Communities” was very informative and gave me a better understanding of the use of wikis by libraries and other organizations and businesses.

When I think about information technology I can see the advantages of using wikis to share ideas and information and you can probably find a wiki on just about any topic you can think of. An upcoming event listed on the Bull Run Library wiki is “Building a Family History Webpage Using PBWiki.” This really caught my attention. Today families are spread across the country & even the world. Genealogy has become a hobby for some but it can take over your life if you are serious about it. A “family history wiki” would get everyone involved and information could be easily shared and organized. One of the articles I read suggested a wiki maintained by friends or family for sharing and indexing recipes. Organizations & corporations holding conferences can easily create a wiki providing information for their members or employees attending in an unfamiliar city. Aside from the schedule of events, information can be posted about restaurants and points of interest, parking and transportation, etc. Current updates can be posted instantly and edited by its members (regarding road construction for example).

Currently many of us are serving on teams or sub committees for the SSP planning. I am helping with one mostly through email but I can see how a wiki could save time and paper with this endeavor. We could each post our ideas much faster than typing them up and sending them to each other. I’m sure some PLCMC staff have already jumped onto the SSP Wiki. The rest of us will probably catch up eventually.