Why a Wiki?

I visited numerous of the recommended Wiki sites and I have mixed feeling about them. In the short little film clip it made sense to use wikis as a way to communicate between numerous people who are trying to organize something like a camping trip. Some of the library wikis, especially the ones for a specific event such as the national conference, made sense. They answered specific questions that people had. Others seem outdated, confusing, and not very interesting.

My impression is that like most of the new technology, it could be used and be very effective for libraries if there was the staff and time to devote to keeping it fresh and updated. If there are postings on a regular basis it stays vibrant. If nothing new has been listed for the past year no one is going to add any comments. A lack of interest seemed evident in several of the sites as there were very few comments.

There was a site that had book reviews and recommendations. This might be a fun format for patrons and staff to add comments about the books that they've read. It makes more sense to me to have a Sno-Isle wiki site for such things as those, rather than having individual branches try to set them up and maintain them. This still requires a wiki master or someone to oversee the postings. There has to be an interest from numerous people to have a successful wiki that is ongoing.

The quality of the sites seemed to vary dramatically in terms of how easy they were to navigate and how visually pleasing they were. If they didn't grab me, I didn't spend much time looking at them.

For Sno-Isle staff use, wikis could be of use to organize events or information between staff. As the number of our employees grows, it does become more challenging to keep everyone on the same page. Maybe wikis could be the answer for some of the things that we've tried to do through the public folders - especially for short term projects such as summer reading.