Something Wiki This Way Comes...

Being a part of the wiki group has really given me insight into how a basic wiki works.  Look forward to my second blog posting tomorrow on behalf of my group, and enjoy our wiki!

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading the New Yorker article and particularly loved the irony of the little editorial note at the end to say that Essjay was not who he said he was.  In an article questioning the validity of Wikipedia, I can't say that that little revelation really helps!  Regardless, I LOVE Wikipedia.  I refer to it all the time.  One of my favourite things to do after I see a new movie or read a new book is to read up on the background and trivia on those items in order to enhance my appreciation of whatever it was I just saw/read.

That said, I personally feel like Wikipedia has spoiled me.  That is to say, I hold it up as the standard that other wikis should aspire to, not in terms of layout but in terms of scope and depth.  Is this really fair of me?  Probably not, but my Wikipedia-bias probably coloured the way I looked at some of the case studies.  I made a valiant effort to look at them objectively, though, and this is what I found:

• SJCPLSubjectGuides was probably my favourite, with Princeton Public Library's BookLoversWiki a close second. I felt that they both had good layout, were browsable by subject and searchable, and have appropriate content for a wiki.
• Perhaps I missed it, but I don't think USC Aiken Gregg-Graniteville Library's wiki had any way to search the wiki, only a way to browse it.  For me, that's a major component that should be in every wiki!
• Bull Run Library's wiki feels more like a blog to me.  It has valuable information, but when I think of a wiki I think of something that not only provides information, but encourages participation from everyone.  Overall, I was really puzzled by this case and would recommend that Bull Run Library re-work their page to work as a wiki.

I think Bull Run Library's example could perhaps illustrate possible confusion between blogs and wikis.  Wikis, I think, are a community-based Web 2.0 application; a blog is more like a journal updated by one or a select group of people.  They can both be searched by categories, but only with wikis can content be changed (blog content should only be changed with explicit mention of what has been changed).  Wikis are, more often, informative in nature; blogs don't have to be: they can be personal or informative or both, all depending on theh blogger.

As mentioned, though, my love of Wikipedia I think informs my idea of what a wiki should be.  It's our most prominent example of what a wiki is.  As I commented elsewhere, I don't really know of any other wikis beyond Wikipedia.  Perhaps this means that wikis have not yet caught on the way blogs have.  But wikis do have great use for many fields, especially libraries (particularly why I liked the SJCPLSubjectGuides, since I think they employ the medium to great effect).  Like RSS, perhaps this is something we should all be promoting, since wikis really are user-friendly!

Something "wicked" this way comes?  I don't think so.  It's time for widespread appreciation of wikis by more people and organizations!  And then, one day, maybe we can think of other prime examples of wikis beyond Wikipedia!