LIS 9763

I use wikis in my day-to-day job, but this use is very one-dimensional. At my office, we use wikis as collaborative workspaces (sort of like an online whiteboard). This is the way that I’ve always known wikis to work. But reading Kille’s article allowed me to see that wikis can have many other practical applications when they’re opened to the public. Using a wiki as a public knowledge repository really opened my eyes to the possible uses that they can have in the library world.

 
Many of the examples cited through the articles this week are wikis that are created for communities. Even though these wikis are based on a physical, geographic location (a city, a university, and so on), they can have a very strong impact on the community members’ sense of collective belonging, shared experiences, and shared history. In a library setting, using wikis in this way can help to strengthen library patrons' relationship with the organization. When someone is directly contributing to something, they have a greater interest in its well-being. Libraries should be using wikis to help to strengthen patrons’ sense of belonging within this community and to help invite new users to join.

 
One thing that I find to be very inconvenient about the world of wiki, however, is the fact that almost every wiki requires a user to have different user information. There are many different wiki sites that exist (such as wikispace) and it makes the technology a little bit inconvenient for those who want to collaborate on a variety of different efforts. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the world of Google – through which I can access email, my RSS reader, and so on – but there needs to be more consistency in the world of wiki in order for people to really collaborate to their full potential.