WIKIS I ALREADY USE
The wiki I administer (take care of housekeeping for) is The ACLD Storytime Wiki, created for use by our library district's Youth Services Planning Group. It's all about programming for children and teens.
The other two wikis I belong to are the Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute's Alumni Wiki (a closed wiki for SSLLI participants and their mentors, alumni, and instructors) and The Youth Services @ ACLD Wiki (created for the YS Department to keep track of group projects).
All three are PBwikis.
WHY I CHOSE PBwiki
Before I set up the ACLD Storytime Wiki, I used WikiMatrix to compare features of the various wiki engines available. It was quite comprehensive and easy to use.
I ultimately chose PBwiki because the basic service is free and has plenty of room. It can also be upgraded for a modest cost, is entirely WYSIWYG and requires no knowledge of coding. Best of all, it supports multimedia content such as clipart, photos, and videoclips with sound.
These features struck me as perfect for creating a powerful but very user-friendly wiki dedicated to youth programming.
SAINT JOSEPH COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM WIKI
The Subject Guides portion of the SJCPL website looked quite straightforward. It reminded me of ACLD's staff bookmarks and Great Links public bookmarks. The layout resembles Wikipedia's.
I took a peek at the homepage, which isn't part of the wiki, and noticed a few points of interest: Encore catalog searcing, IM reference service, audiobooks on iPod, a GameBlog, and a dedicated teen page. ACLD doesn't offer any of these services--yet.
The entire website is very, very spare. A little too spare for my taste. A purely white background just isn't engaging to my eye. I'd recommend some sort of (subtle) background image to offset the plain-and-simple text, thus lending interest to the page.
BOOK LOVERS WIKI
Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki was created for their 2007 summer reading program and apparently featured prizes for those who contributed content in the form of book reviews.
The wiki comprises about 200 reviews in all, and the wiki notes that the wiki has been discontinued (it remains accessible solely as an archive) because library patrons are now able to enter their reviews directly into PPL's online catalog.
The wiki is pleasingly crafted in pale shades of green, and each review contains both an image of the book's jacket and rating in the form of stars. Reviewers may be identified by name or choose to remain anonymous.
I like the design flair that went into this functional / minimalist yet aesthetic wiki.
LIBRARY SUCCESS
Meredith Farkas's "Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki" is another that resembles the look and feel of Wikipedia. It looks well organized and comprehensive, a sort of central clearinghouse for all sorts of useful information about running a library.
In my opinion, the Alachua County Library District could learn a thing or two from this wiki about how to organize information employees need to access easily and often in order to do their jobs.
Right now, our forms, policies and procedures are chaotically scattered over several servers. Employees often spend more time searching for a form than they do filling it out. It's remarkably inefficient.
It's rumored that all these forms, etc., are about to be moved from their disparate servers to our staff-only intranet. If that's the case, I hope whoever is in charge of the move will organize the information as thoughtfully as Ms. Farkas has her best practices wiki.
LIBRARY STAFF WIKI
The Albany County Public Library's staff wiki is obviously a PBwiki. It has that distinctive look.
Having a centralized, easily accessible place to store communal information (such as library procedures) has long been a dream of mine. Apparently others consider such a place a worthy enterprise as well.
I feel mildly cheered. At least I'm not the only one on the planet who thinks a half-way decently organized procedures manual a goal worth prioritizing.
Now if only such a thing could become a reality at ACLD.
BLOGGING LIBRARIES WIKI
Blogging Libraries Wiki, like The Library Success Wiki, is powered by MediaWiki. It looks a lot like the SJCPL Subject Guides Wiki, which is to say, it follows the Wikipedia model of being bare-bones, spare, and texty rather than visually arresting.
Though it contains no images other than a very simple logo, it's a nice idea: create a wiki to collect links to library blogs. Librarians will find this a useful tool, even if the workmanlike design fails to excite much emotional response. (Fun to look at this wiki is not.)
Though the lack of images is most likely a constraint of the wiki's service level--probably basic and therefore free--I hope the wiki's creators will eventually opt to upgrade to a level of service that allows greater use of images, preferably photos.
ADDING TO MY WIKIS
During the last couple of weeks, I've added pages to all three of the wikis to which I belong.
As a class assignment, I uploaded my class project's "Charge" (formal statement of purpose and delineation of roles and responsibilities for those involved) and Gantt chart (timeline for the project) to the SSLLI Alumni Wiki.
(I wish I could show them to you, but it's a closed wiki.)
I created a quick-and-dirty booklist entitled "Some Good Teen Reads" to the booklists area of the YS @ ACLD Wiki. Because it's an open wiki, this page is available for all to see.
Finally, I created a couple of new folders (Information and Notes), added 60 new users to the wiki, performed various edits to existing pages, and fashioned 27 new pages for the wiki.
Here are a couple of my favorites: "FAQ: Reasons to Contribute" and "Fingerplay: Ten Little Candles."
BUSY BUSY
Virtual Unicorn has been a busy beast. Just one of many reasons I am so far behind in doing my 23 Things!
But that is why the Powers that Be created weekends, and I am busily using this one to get caught up.
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