Assignment #8 Wacki Wikis

While shelf reading last week, I noticed a copy of "Wikis for Dummies" in the St Jacobs collection. After visiting the three sites that I used for this blog, I feel comfortable in talking about wikis and no longer feel dummyish.

The sites that I visited are:

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki ;

St. Joseph County Public Library's Subject Guides ; and

Waterloo Way Wiki – the stories of entrepreneurs in Waterloo Region .

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki included some great link for librarians.
I found information about everything from practical conferences for newbies, to guides to collection weeding with the CREW method leading the way. Excerpts from weeding policies for numerous libraries also looked very helpful.
This site requires an email address upon registering to help save this site from hackers and vandals alike. The template for using this site was similar to the others that I visited which allow users to perform the following tasks Navigation, search and toolbox.

The St. Joseph County Public Library provides a subject guide for local information and educational, cultural and community building resources. This site has a very professional look and requires users to sign in as patrons for some of the links. I liked the practicality of some of the information in this site. For example there was a clear and concise definition of biography, autobiography, memoirs, journals and diaries.
There is also a link from the wiki to the main library site which includes the following:

The St. Joseph County Public Library has a variety of ways to ask for assistance from its helpful staff of Librarians:

Ask a question via a live chat session, Ask a question via e-mail, Ask a question by phone, Drop by the Reference Desk for help, and Suggest a Title for Purchase.

The wiki also has some links that require logging in as a patron (such as Novelist) and others that allow navigating online (such as Pearls' Picks and Tumblebooks for kids).

The wiki site also has the standard navigation, search and toolbox tasks that visitors have available.

Waterloo Way Wiki provides the stories of entrepreneurs in Waterloo Region. I enjoyed this site because it was local. Like other wikis, anyone can add to or edit what is written in these bios. The site is well organized, has a professional layout and it's local so it's good!
Options for navigating the site are more inclusive, allowing a user to explore, interact, search and go to the toolbox.

Overview
Not being a wiki user, I have learned a fair bit and had some fun. The premise of wikis is that anyone can add or modify the contents of the site. But I did note that some sites require users to be signed in which provides some level of authenticity in the information entered. As a social networking site, wikis are monitored and the garbage entered will be thrown out by other users or the managers of the site. The sites are free to use and open to all.

Wikis seem very "democratic" but with that comes the reality that sites will be abused and wiki police will have to monitor its users.