Wiki-stuff

Lesson elements: Wikis in Plain English was easy to watch and understand.

The second lesson element, Using Wikis to Create Online Communities was not nearly so entertaining. Still stuffed with good information, though. (And not everything has to have clowns & hand-puppets, right?).

So now I have a better grasp of what a wiki is & does. Which is good, since it seems as if they're ever more prevalent in the library community. LexisNexis, for example, is wiki-fying their help pages.

To kick things off, they even offered prizes - Amazon gift certificates!! - to anyone who'd submit guides. And it's probably a mark of just how many of us are still uncomfortable with wikis that they had a hard time giving anything away!

And they're not alone. SDLN has started a wiki using PBwiki so that SD libraries can better share information and help one another. (And if you're an ILL librarian in SD, or know one, recommend they access & explore!) And of course, there's the (bane or blessing) massive Wikipedia that's threatening the existence of all of our lovely print encyclopedias and driving teachers everywhere to pull out their hair - LOL!

I've run out of day for my time today, so I'll have to get back to this later - I'm looking forward to exploring the recommended sites, and I'm already thinking of ways that a wiki could be useful. Of course, getting people to participate would be key....

(heads off muttering to self)