How to Develop and Use a Wiki in Your Library

Are you thinking about taking the plunge into the globe of web two. with your library and creating a wiki? I lately place together a profitable wiki for my college library and so I would like to share some success suggestions for how to do it successfully.

1. Which wiki platform are you going to use? This is important mainly because there are hundreds of them out there and they all vary in terms of ease of use, price tag, and setup as well as the potential to control who can view your wiki as nicely as who can post to your wiki.

2. Do you want to use your wiki exclusively as a strategy of organizing and altering material on your internet site? Or do you want to use the wiki to permit your patrons to interact with each other?

three. What is the exact goal for your wiki? To communicate between library employees? To communicate with your patrons? To let your patrons communicate with every other?

four. What content material are you going to contain on your wiki? Just links to other pages on your library internet internet site, a searchable library catalog, details about library classes and events, popular books, news and announcements or other items?

five. Do you want to pay for a wiki service or do you want to use a absolutely free wiki?

six. Is there a tech assistance individual accessible to assist you set up your wiki and to assist with some periodic maintenance? If not, do hidden wiki have a librarian who can take charge of the wiki and its updates and the technological side of sustaining a wiki? A wiki is a lot less difficult to use and hold up with on a regular site, having said that, you cannot just place it up and by no means commit time working on it.

7. It also aids if you can create some wiki specific content. In our case we created subject pages for each of the big subjects taught at our college and included hyperlinks to databases, magazines, books, ebooks, specialized encyclopedias and web-sites for every single topic. We also have our library news and policies amongst other things of interest to our patrons on our wiki. You need to have to give your patrons a reason to study the wiki and to use it.

eight. Wikis are one of the technologies of the future and as much more and much more libraries and other firms commence working with them, it is to your advantage to discover how to use a single and to decide if it is correct for your library.