Thing #17: Wikis

We've been using wikis for library staff for some time. We started by taking a set of "useful Web links" pages and turning them into a wiki so that staff wouldn't have to wait for me to get around to editing the Web pages in order to link to useful sites. Some other uses of the wiki that have been added since include:

• a missing holds wiki, to help staff throughout our multi-branch system track down holds that get misdirected
• a "TechTime Share" wiki, where items demonstrated at an informal monthly tech-oriented training session are posted
• a discussion wiki for the book Wikinomics, which was chosen for a "one book, one staff" reading program earlier this year (this will be replaced with a new one in 2009)
• a wiki where staff who are participating in Nebraska Learns 2.0 can post links to their blogs

Expanding the use of wikis to our public Web site (especially for posting useful Web sites) is also a possibility, but it hasn't happened yet.

One further observation: sometimes it's hard to decide whether a blog or a wiki is the best approach for a particular function. In many cases, arguments can be made both ways.