Thing 16 - Wikis

I visited the Library Success wiki, and I think it's a great skeleton that just needs a little meat on its bones. I reviewed several sections, including Programming for Adults, Team Building, Weeding Library Collections, Keeping Up with the Profession, Electronic Databases, Widgets, and Calendars, to name a few. I found a few useful websites, but in general, I felt the wiki is underdeveloped. For example, the Programming for Adults section only has a handful of ideas, but on a positive note, it does have a link to the Diversity Exchange Database, originally created by Ocean County Library. Some of the sections just contain links without explanations. I guess that's the thing about wikis--content creation is up to the users, and since I suspect these voluntary contributions are made on people's own time, it probably takes a while for some pages to fulfill the vision of the creators.

As for the Ocean County Library wiki, it seems obvious that Garnetpoint is a staff member who updates the page regularly. It's neat to have a record of what changes are made, but tracing the history is a bit mystifying. I suppose reading the changes takes a bit of getting used to--it kind of reminds me of the shorthand language used in knitting patterns.