[Web4lib] Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki

[Anderson,Joe]

Re Bill Drew's comment about WebJunction in the context of the new wave
of library wikis: the WJ community is intended to be "open to all of us
to add content."  Both through our message boards and content
contributions, we have hundreds of contributors.  We also have a growing
network of community editors and partners that develop, post, and manage
their own content through our content management system.

It's true (in our content areas, anyway) that we make use of a
by-now-old-fashioned CMS to enable contributions.  The disintermediation
provided by a wiki environment is powerful and exciting, and we
seriously looking into the idea of incorporating wiki functionality into
WebJunction.

As you may have heard, OCLC will be piloting wiki extensions to Open
WorldCat in the next few months.  The interesting thing about that model
is the combination of a structured schema with "point of need" ability
for the community to contribute content.

Because WJ is a community of communities (state libraries and others),
each of which has its own needs for managing the organization of
information, it's an open question whether the folksonomic aspect of
wiki functionality would work for us.  We are evaluating whether it
makes sense for us to follow along the WorldCat path of enabling
contribution/editing of content within a managed taxonomic strucutre, or
letting things grow like Topsy in true wiki-ish fashion.  Will a
distributed taxonomy work for a gang of librarians in the domain of
library practice?  We'll be watching the new (battling or not) library
wikis with great interest!

I know that some WJ colleagues talked with Meredith at OCLC's blogger's
party about the idea of collaborating on the best practices wiki idea.
This is something we were and are very interested in.  We hope to keep
talking with her (and other like-minded folks) as these projects
develop.

Swirling in the info-maelstrom,

Joe Anderson
Editor, WebJunction.org
206-351-5607

>Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2005 00:25:15 -0500
>From: Alec Sonsteby <sonsteby at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
>To: web4lib at webjunction.org
>Message-ID: <42CE0E3B.3080007 at uiuc.edu>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>I think the Library Success wiki will win out, if it comes to that. 
>Unlike the other, the Library Success wiki has a clearer purpose.
>
>Alec

D.H. Mattison wrote:
> Shouldn't every librarian with a good idea also be contributing to the

> Library and Information Science Wiki (http://www.liswiki.com) started 
> by John Hubbard? Will there be a wiki war or a wiki merger?
> Interesting that they're both using the same software that powers
Wikipedia.
> 
> David Mattison
> Victoria, BC, Canada
> dmattison at shaw.ca
> Tiki Wiki Hut: http://www.davidmattison.ca/tiki Ten Thousand Year
> Blog: http://www.davidmattison.ca/wordpress
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Drew, Bill
> Sent: July 7, 2005 7:40 AM
> To: LITA-l at ala.org; web4lib at webjunction.org; COLLIB-L at ala.org
> Subject: [Web4lib] Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
> 
> 
> Every librarian with a good idea that works should be contributing to 
> this new wiki started by Meredith Farkas. I just added content to one 
> section on technology. I actually like this idea better than 
> WebJunction in some ways since it is open to all of us to add content.
> What are you waiting for?-- Bill Drew
> 
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