Wikis Learn and Play @CML Things #15 & 16

Alright so I am a little behind with the Learn & Play program as I got caught up in telling the story of Mulligan in my last few posts.

Getting back on track - you'll note I've skipped Thing #14. This is odd to me as I've actually been working on my post for thing #14 since early September. I've been doing a lot of research and digging through emails, blog posts and news articles. Hopefully it will all lead to an interesting, or at least an enlightening read about Web 2.0. But it won't be today.

Today, we are talking about Wikis.

Wikis aren't something I had used so while I was not hesitant, I also can't say I was overly confident going into this exercise. It also didn't help that I was also having a very "clicky," (with the mouse) day and all 400 + people taking part in Learn & Play @CML seemed to be editing the group wiki at the same time. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. - Maybe.

In any case, - Wow! What a cool tool, especially for collaborative efforts.

I can see libraries using these for all kinds of working groups, book discussions, procedural items, and especially as a means to get info from the public. Why not a public wiki where people can login and tell us about their tastes, list books, movies and music that they like? Sure, they could just email, or send a message, but with a wiki they could add to the list and see what other users want as well.

Okay for the naysayers - You know that guy who thinks we just have to have every copy of every book by Bert Niffendorfer - (I made that up)-? With the wiki we could point him to the list of customer requests so he could see that he really is the only person who wants those books, so No we're not going to buy them.

For the glass half-full folks, think of how this would help us respond to what our customers want and need in their library experience.

Personally, I'm thinking of using a wiki for the work of The MJB Foundation. With so many family activities pulling everybody in different directions it might be nice to have all of our pertinent information, and a list of "what's going on" all in one place.

Food for thought at least...