Discover Wikis

Obviously, my first choice in the list of wikis was Book Lovers Wiki at the Princeton Public Library, and it was easy to see how this could work in a number of settings. Great to see it as a standard part of life in a public library, and you could use a wiki as an online bookclub if you were a group of social individuals, or students, or a bookshop, or reviewers for an organisation. It could be a way to promote a book, such as the 'One Book, One Brisbane', by encouraging people to read it and review or comment.

My next choice was the Wookieepedia. As you would expect, it is quite a complex wiki, with many features and entry points, and everything hyperlinked back to other parts of the wiki. I guess the sort of people who walk around with an encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars are the sort of people who are very au fait with the web and spend a great deal of their lives online. The exactitude of the entries, and the level of detail was impressive. Perhaps a little more natural light wouldn't go astray, but I enjoyed the level of science fantasy enthusiasm!

The Mint Museums wiki seems to operate more like a standard website. Not as interactive, and the wiki pages sit on the site just like they would as part of the main website structure. I guess using a wiki just offers more flexibility to its contributors.

The Public Libraries NSW Marketing Group Wiki looked pretty useful. I think this kind of set-up could work really well across interest groups, and within an organsation, for staff to update each other and pool ideas and news. As a part-time worker, it could be very helpful indeed, as people who jobshare could list their daily wrap up/unfinished work in the wiki for their jobshare partner to read the next day and continue. All sorts of things in a library could be helped by a wiki. Procedures manual, tips for staff in dealing with clients, staff alerts, staff bookclub, weird reference queries, latest reference queries, upcoming deadlines, brainstorming public programme ideas, latest acquisitions.