[Web4lib] wikis in libraries

[Havens,Andy]

In a previous life, I did quite a bit of research into wikis for some
clients I was consulting for. The issue of not having a WYSIWYG
interface was, frankly, a show-stopper for this particular audience.
It's not that they wanted to do anything spectacular, but they did want
control over some very basic table editing and formatting, and the folks
who were paying for the wiki set-up needed to know that the "content
creation audience" would have next-to-no issues with the UI. So off I
went looking for the perfect wiki with WYSIWYG capabilities.

Seedwiki has been mentioned. It does have a decent WYSIWYG editor, but
its other capabilities are, frankly, limited and I wouldn't be prepared
to use it for a medium-to-large scale project. 

For the money ($10/month for unlimited users and custom domain), I
currently recommend www.Editme.com as my #1 choice. It is, however, only
a wiki farm (hosted service). You can't put it behind your own firewall.
It has the best combination of user/group permissions and editor
interface I have seen. You can set up as many groups/user permission
structures as you like, make them locked/visible/invisible to each
other, and have permissions "follow" from the page on which a new page
is created, which is great for setting up a new group, giving them one
page, and then letting them go off and do their own thing. You can also,
for higher dough plans, map your domain name.

For a bit more money, I recommend www.Jotspot.com. Jot is a bit pricier
(lowest plan with unlimited users is $69.95/month), but they have a
whole mess of "application wiki" plug-ins
(http://www.jotspot.com/gallery/). Lots to do; Group Directory,
File Cabinet,Blogs, Forums, Group Calendars, Photo Gallerys, Polls,
To-Do Lists, Spreadsheets, Project Managers, Call-Log Managers, etc..
Jot is a hosted solution, but for a bunch of dough you can get a box for
behind your firewall.

If you want to host your own... The options are less interesting. Most
Open Source wiki engines, like Media Wiki, are not WYSIWYG, although
there are some 3rd party developer plug-ins coming out. Tikiwiki, which
has every option under the sun for a wiki/CMS system, uses a WYSIWYG
interface for many of its modules... But not the wiki pages, for which
it still uses a standard wiki mark-up. It does have, though, frankly
every-dang-thing you could possibly want a CMS/wiki to do. Except really
good documentation; it's complex and funky.

I've built wikis with Editme, Jot, Tikiwiki and Mediawiki (and PBWiki,
PHPWiki, Tiddlywiki and a couple other really weird ones). Look for
granular and flexible permission structures FIRST. That can come back to
haunt you later and be a big pain. Don't poo-poo WYSIWYG if you want
your end-users to actually use the thing; nobody likes paired codes. I
know how to use them, and I hate them. 

Hope that helps a bit.


- A 

Andy Havens 
Manager, Creative Services 
OCLC Online Computer Library Center 
www.oclc.org 
email: havensa at oclc.org 
phone: 614.764.4326 
cell: 614.395.4134 


-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Mark Robertson
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 2:40 PM
To: web4lib
Subject: [Web4lib] wikis in libraries

Our library is already using wikis internally for committee work etc.  
Now we are exploring the issue of how to use wikis on our library
website and beyond as a way of collaborating with our users.  Can anyone
suggest examples of libraries using wikis successfully for this purpose?
What seems to work best? - wikis as FAQs? wikis as subject pathfinders?
wikis on policies? assignment wikis?

-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Robertson
Reference Librarian
Scott Library - York University
(416) 736-2100 x33526
----------------------------------------------------------------------


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