I think wikis are so awesome. I’m a huge fan of Wikipedia. Yes. I’m a librarian who loves Wikipedia. I used to run in fear from it. Then one day I sat down and said, “OK, Eleanor, time to get serious.” I picked five things I know at least more than a little about from different subject areas (pop culture, art, history, sports, needlework) and read up on them on Wikipedia. I didn’t find anything that went against what I already knew to be true. Of course, I wouldn’t use it for academic research, but it’s a really, really, really great starting point.

As for other wikis, I haven’t found a ton of major ones that I refer to often. I tried searching for sports or gardening wikis but came up empty (I didn’t search long or hard). But I have had experience setting up a wiki for use in a small group of people trying to keep track of a glossary of terms for a specific project. It worked like a charm! Wikis could not be easier to set up and contribute to. The hardest part was decided on the syntax of the entries!

I feel like a wiki would be a great way to organize information for training new employees. We have a fair amount of turn-over among librarians with people moving up (or out) and having a wiki set up for a new person to work through on their own time, and add to as they learn the ropes, would be a cool way to archive lessons learned from training. Fresh eyes would be constantly editing the document to make sure it’s up to date and useful.

Speaking of which, I love the Library Best Practices Wiki, but almost always forget it’s there. I pledge to refer to it more often this year!