Task 16 Wikis

Wikis seem to be very popular and well used. The examples promoted in this activity indicate that Wikis are a very adaptable technology. I think they would be very useful for information sharing in so many situations particularly work team communications, social clubs, interest groups and enthusiasts. We have had the problem of dead links in subject guides so I'm sure in a Wiki environment we would be made aware of these quite quickly, perhaps eliminating embarrassing dead ends.

The St Josephs school was well set out and easy to follow, Book Lovers and Library Success were also good

I like the idea of open sharing however it is unfortunate that some people won't do the right thing and I notice that some sites require email details before allowing access, as a protection against vandals. Wikis would be an acceptable starting point for general information, but I would be inclined to look directly for specific or known sites for information where quality control was important.

I can imagine that library catalogues would be more helpful to clients if there was a Wiki functionality where people could comment about the resources they have used or where cataloguers can enter more expansive details such as contents pages perhaps. The information about WorldCat.org and Open WorldCat is very interesting - perhaps we could run our own bookshop as well as we'd have a captured market.

In our TAFE community we could have Wikis for each faculty within the Institute where people can network and also use them between Institutes where they might work like VTANs and TLNs. I really liked the example provided by the busy Meredith Farkas for using Wikis for conference information, this would be especially useful to the inexperienced and visitors to the locality.