Thing 12: Wikis

I like the concept of the wiki, and I use Wikipedia fairly often to answer my own personal questions that are of a trivial nature.  I can understand why some teachers would issue a “ban” on student use of Wikipedia for assignments, though.  There are some people out there who just have too much time on their hands, and they apparently take great pleasure in things like “vandalizing” the Pop Tarts entry and many others in Wikipedia.  So while I appreciate the concept of the wiki, I wouldn’t make life-impacting decisions based on information I found in a wiki.  Here’s a link to an interesting article by Nicholson Baker in The New York Review of Books.

I’m a rule follower by nature, and one of my personal pet peeves is people who don’t do what they’re supposed to do.  Those are the people who damage the integrity of the wiki.  I have a little mantra that I find myself repeating often, “If people would just do what they’re supposed to do, the world would be a better place.”  (Yes, I realize that this is a broad generalization, and there are plenty of times when the rules are stupid and people need to break them.) The same can be said for wikis:  If people would just do what they’re supposed to do, wikis would be a more reliable information source.

Some of our staff is working on a circulation manual, and I really liked the Albany County Public Library Staff Wiki.  I thought it was a great idea for documenting those sometimes elusive procedures and practices that everyone assumes everyone else knows about but that aren’t written down.  I plan to forward that link to my co-workers that are currently working on the circulation manual.

I edited the NEFLIN 23 Things Wiki on the “Edit Me Wiki Test Page.”  It was fairly straightforward and painless.  Lucky for you I’m not a dangerous Pop Tart vandal!