Week 12 Readings

Using a Wiki to Manage a Library program: Sharing knowledge to better serve patrons.

Librarians can make use of the Wiki to provide or share information across a network. When used to assist with instruction, staff members invited to the Wiki can edit and input resources to achieve a well rounded and rich tool set. The oppertunities for collaberative works alone make the instructional Wiki more interactive than plain text files. In my opinion, the wiki as an instructional tool is more valuable when those in need of instruction or input are great distance from those who have the resources to share.

WebBlogs: Their use and Applications In Science and Technology Libraries:

This article details the history, functionality and popularity of Web blogging. The range of blog types run the simple one page list of friends to call, to complex industry project logs. Children Blog about favorite shows and activities, teens may blog about social life, adults express their views on current hot topics. In library settings, Blogs contain information that is both time sensitive and mission critical, announce new resources and exchange a loose collection of work-culture ideas.


Creating the Academic Library Folksonoy:


Just as Google revolutionized the internet search, social tagging is revolutionizing the way people (researchers) access, collect and store those internet resources after they have been discovered. I see it in terms of effort reduction. By use of social tagging someone who found information on a topic of interest to me will have left a sign-post that says: "It's over here!" about whatever that topic is. The other nice thing about social tagging is the location. The collection of tags are always online which means one has access to them 24/7 via whatever device gets internet connectivity, plus keywords used and identification of content. So, instead of an exhaustive Google search that may produce content that is off-topic, I can search through social tags that have narrowed the parameters in advance.

As a Reference Librarian, where the entire reference interview may only consist of 13minutes, an accurate, dependable and fast search method that has pre-defined the content is a major tool to use in getting an answer to the Library user's questions or needs.


Jimmy Wales On the Birth of Wikipedia:

How to take the Concept of We The People to defining information on the Web. Wikipedia is doing for the internet what World Book Encyclopedia has done for the K-12 set. Most administrative functions are staff by volunteers which has reduced the operating cost. Considering that Wikipedia is multi-lingual and multi-cultural in scope. The content is edited for political balance and monitored for offensive content. Social policy and management software is employed to maintain some control of the issues under discussion.