Week 6: Wikis

These last couple weeks have been full of wikis for me. I have been working with Chris, Jen and Kristen on our wiki project for this week, and I am in the midst of starting to work with the staff at my co-op on a "Knowledge Base" (aka a wiki, but called a Knowledge Base here so it doesn't sound as scary).

I started off this whole wiki adventure by reading Farkas So you Want to Build a Wiki and I was shown the way! I wasn't sure what wiki to choose for our group project, but the list that she provides makes clear what is the most user-friendly for first time wikiers (is that even a word?).

After looking at the wikis that she recommended, I chose to go with SeedWiki which is ridiculously easy to navigate and contribute to. As Farkas points out, and I have experienced first hand, wiki technology is luckily very user-friendly for those that do not have technical skills.

The first point that Farkas makes is that a wiki must have a specific purpose. This has been a turning point for the staff at my co-op. I have sensed a general resistance to the wiki "Knowledge Base" project by most of the staff here and the true champion of this project is the webmaster.

The webmaster makes the point that comes up in Anglea Kille's paper Wikis in the Workplace...,which is that knowledge management is essential for effective workflow and for sharing and recording knowledge. It's also a conversational tool in that co-workers can collaborate on the tasks that they already share in the library. The wiki would just capture the collaboration that already occurs, so that there is a record of these events.

As of today, the "Knowledge Base" is mostly just an idea at the library here (although the webmaster has created the site, nobody contributes to it), but as a project this summer, I have been given the green light to try to figure out how best to implement and make the case that a collaborative tool is needed for effective workflow at this particular library.