This is the fifteenth installment in "33 Wikis," a close look at best practices in wiki-based collaboration. Each day -- for 33 days -- we look at one wiki and briefly describe what the wiki is for, why we like it, and what we all can learn from it. If you want to nominate a wiki, please let us know. On day 34 we will post a public wiki featuring info on all nominees.
What this wiki is for: This week we looked at wikis for politics, and wikis for education. Big theme all week has been information, and today we turn to folks in the information sciences, namely librarians. One of the best specimens in this category is a wiki called Library Success that bills itself as follows: “… one-stop-shop for great ideas and information for all types of librarians. All over the world, librarians are developing successful programs and doing innovative things with technology that no one outside of their library knows about. There are lots of great blogs out there sharing information about the profession, but there is no one place where all of this information is collected and organized.”
Why we like it: Created by Meredith Farkas, a librarian in Vermont, the Library Success wiki serves as a collaborative site for librarians all over the world. As with many other professions, the teaching and practice of library sciences varies widely state to state and country to country. This wiki serves to raise the standard across all territories, with information on best practices in technology, training, programming, professional ethics, and other topics.
What we all can learn from it: the wiki as steward to a profession holds a lot of promise, and we believe that the Library Success wiki is a great example. We expect other professions to build out collaborative environments for their own folks, but as is true of all wikis, it takes the energy and dedication of an evangelist and gardener (in this case Farkas) to get anything meaningful going.
Wow! Thanks for recognizing our wiki! I've been working very hard to show librarians the potential of wikis in our field so it's nice to have validation -- especially from outside of the library world. :)
Posted by: Meredith | April 08, 2006 at 09:28 AM
In high school, I spent practically every afternoon hanging out with my nerdy friends at the school library (we had a split session, and shared the building with the junior high school). We all got close to the head librarian, who became a role model for each of us. Erudite, funny, and, surprisingly, rebellious ... he taught us to love the life of the mind, and the fantastic world of books. Libraries are a lot more than books today, but they still stand for the same thing. Libraries are about liberation.
Posted by: Giovanni Rodriguez | April 08, 2006 at 09:42 AM