20 August 2008

#11 Wikis and libraries

Wikis are my favourite web application. I have two wikis - one to keep snippets of information that I would like to keep to refer back to from time to time and one for helping organising my work. Both of them I have made private as it is for personal use.

The possible uses of wikis are endless. In any context where content is created wikis can be of use. One of the first examples of a library using a public wiki that I came across was the Antioch University New English Library training wiki. The examples of libraries using wikis illustrates how versatile wikis can be.

Unfortunately a lot of wikis are placed behind firewalls so they can't be accessed by public. This is especially the case of businesses that use wikis. Wherever groups are coming together and creating documents wikis should be of great use, though there is a great assumption of trust among wiki users. Without that trust it is impossible to rely on the wiki as communication and information tool.

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