Week 7, Thing 16: Wikis

I was somewhat familiar with wikis already, as I've used the famous wiki, Wikipedia, to search for information on the history of the Muppets and other various interests. I've even had a hand in taking it upon myself in keeping the Wikipedia of a lesser known actor that I'm a fan and supporter of, updated, by adding much more information on his career to his page than was previously shared. The one thing I don't like about Wikipedia though is that because it can be updated by ANYONE (a simultaneous blessing and curse, lol) sometimes false information can be posted or the page can even be spammed with junk having nothing to do with the actual topic at hand. I enjoyed learning more about other wikis in this discovery exercise and other resources. I was impressed and found it interesting that libraries are finding many different purposes for wikis in order to keep themselves and also sometimes the general public and their patrons informed. I think that wikis could be used not only to publish upcoming library and local community events, but I could see a wiki being beneficial even to our in-staff applications like the Minutes and our staff Pipeline! In theory, I bet there could even be step-by-step written tutorials for training pertaining to certain aspects and procedures in staff members' jobs (for example, there might be a page teaching Pages about Circulation duties like how to deal with blocks on patrons' library records or the procedures for filling out new library cards). Rather than sending these all out by individual staff emails, a wiki could post all of this in one place with separate links to the different topics and 1 email could be sent out with the link to the wiki and announcing that the page had been updated with new information. :) I've learned through self-exploration and these exercises that wikis could basically contain anything and everything.