Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Week 7, Exercise 16

Today's exploration revolved around wikis. SJCPL's Subject Guides opening page didn't look much different that our own Wired Subject Guides. But if you click on a subject, the next page seems to be a collection of information on the subject pulled together from different soures. I picked up several additions to my future reading list from the Book Lovers Wiki. I even put an audio book on request, based on the reviewer's comment about how the reader personalized the character's voices. That makes listening to a recorded novel so much more interesting. [Note to SJPL media selectors; try to get more audio books recorded by Sam Dastor and David Suchet; they do a great job of "acting" the characters they read.] Library Success: a Best Practices Wiki looks like a great resource. I'll bookmark it when I get to work tomorrow. As to how the library might utilize a wiki - I think the concept of developing an online equivalent of the library as gathering place is a good one. For one thing, we could expand the space available for posting public notices about community events. The idea of enabling people to annotate online catalog entries also sounds like a good one. It's very frustrating when an entry does not have a summary to enable you to judge the books value. It would also be immensely valuable as a place where workgroups could carry on a discussion and share documents without clogging email. Anything to relieve the overwhelming glut of email would be welcome. Don't know that I could every trust a wiki as the source of authoritative information, though. The idea that anybody, no matter their level of expertise on a subject, can post information as fact just doesn't sit right. That about sums up my exploration of wikis. Yahoo! I'll get to hit the sack before 1 a.m. for a change!

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