Week 5

Learning 2.0 week 5 and wikis! This seems to be an exciting and controversial area, perhaps because it challenges so many traditional concepts regarding information creation and publication.

I looked at a number of wikis, including the following:-

Book Lovers wiki (Princeton Public Library)

This is a library wiki centred on the Princeton Library's Summer Reading Club for adults. It seems a great idea for promoting reading - the wiki is an excellent medium for sharing book reviews and responding to others' reviews - the closest thing to a cyber book club! It is well-designed (naturally - being a library site!) eg with an index (by genre) to reviews.

Wookieepedia (the Star Wars wikipedia)

Wow! This is a world unto itself - very much a wiki for a specific community (of fans!) When I viewed the site (31/3/09) there were 65, 759 articles listed. It was easy to use, with options such as search, featured articles, and view recent edits.

It was also interesting to note a very real concern with quality issues eg a system of rating articles (by a panel of Wookieepedians known as the 'Inquisitorius'), as well as a category for articles that need to be expanded/require further work.

The Full Library Success: a best practices wiki

This wiki is good for sharing ideas re library best practice in a range of areas eg readers' advisory, reference, promotions, services to specific groups, and technology. It represents a great range of resources - I loved the 'Display' ideas (under 'Selling your library'), especially the 'Banned Books'! The site was very intuitive to use, navigate, locate help, etc.

Re the hands-on exercise for this week - contributing to a wiki - I added my thoughts on working as a branch librarian to the NSW Learning 2.0 wiki. Wouldn't have believed it could be that easy!