Thing 7 - Wikis

For this week's assignment I'm supposed to post my thoughts about wikis. I did look at a number of the wikis that were suggested to us. I was actually surprised by the number of wikis that were aimed at the healthcare professionals, including students. There were a number in the radiology and cardiology areas. What struck me about a number of the wikis though was that they seemed like someone started them, but then no one else joined in to edit the wiki and the original author lost interest. There were many of them that said "we need your input in these areas" and it seemed like it was 75% or more of the content that was blank. A little disappointing, and it also shows how difficult it is to keep anything, even a wiki, maintained. It made me wonder how current some of the information was on these wikis, and if it could be trusted.

In terms of library wikis, I did think the Library Success wiki was a great idea. Although it also suffered from the same problem of being pretty thin on content. Some areas had more information (marketing, technology) while other areas had very little (reference). Biz Wiki is one I have heard of previously, and I think it is very good. But I believe it is completely maintained by a librarian in Ohio. I don't believe that it can be edited by anyone besides that librarian.

I thought I'd find a number of wikis that were aimed at patients - sort of like support groups. I didn't see too many. Wiki Cancer was likely the closest one I saw, but again, it seems like there is a main group doing the editing and that others are just posting comments.

I know in my library we are using wikis that are accessible only to our staff. These wikis contain policies, procedures, tidbits of information, etc. Since we are a small audience and we all have a vested interest in the information, the wiki is updated frequently by a number of library staff. The format seems to be working really well, and we have been happy with it. My impression is that it is easier to create a wiki for a smaller group, in which everyone can have access, rather than trying to create a wiki for everyone in the world to use.