Week Seven Part Sixteen: Wikis

I have been using Wikipedia for some time as a good jumping off place to track down "reputable information". I knew that wikis were open and that the information was not necessarily substantiated, that they were subject to biased reporting, and that teachers wouldn't permit them to be used as a source for research. I wasn't aware, until this exercise that wikis could be contained and controlled.

I am very impressed with the opportunities that Wikis offer for collective sharing of valid information. I am also delighted with the ease of my being able to contribute. I knew theoretically that wikis were many-authored but I didn't know how the process worked before playing with this exercise.

My favorite examined wiki was The Library 2.0 in 15 Minutes a Day. I found it simple (encouraging), thorough and a great resource to guide patrons to, which is always 50% of my goal in this whole 23 Things process.

The Book Lovers Wiki had some useful aspects since there were many varied titles -- always nice because it alerts patrons to what's out there in the reading world, but some of the books reviewed were outdated, i.e., Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Deception Point. Likewise, the Best Practices Wiki was sporadic between flush with information and sparse; having headings listed didn't mean there was content: "Readers' Advisory/Leading Book Groups", for example, merely had a list of possible titles and not a how-to for leading a book discussion.