Wikis

I read and printed many, many pages about wikis. I am pleasantly surprised by how much I like the concept and the results. I haven't seen enough yet to see one that has gone terribly wrong, but I'm sure it can happen.
I loved the St. Joseph County Public Library Subject Guides. I had already checked it out earlier in the session before I saw that it was an "assignment." I happened to go to Pets, then to Cat Fanciers, and in no time I was reading about and looking at pictures of two breeds that interest me -- Somalis & Turkish Angoras. It was impressive to me that all that information was right there, so easily found. The wiki aspect is less obvious, but I see where a librarian has recommended a new book with an annotation. There are also links to local pet activities and to the pet magazines owned by the library with the holdings. It is all very user friendly. I also looked at the library blog entries on gaming, which should appeal to teens. There were photos of their own teens who had participated in gaming tournaments.
Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki was neat. It was done specifically for a summer reading event for adults in 2006. Maybe we could do something similar for the Adult Winter Reading Program? People wrote reviews of books they read.
Library 2.0 in 15 Minutes a Day (hah!) seemed like a good way to present the material. It's not at all cumbersome.
I understand now why people have been talking about starting wikis here at HCPL, such as for updating the branch managers' handbooks or having one for our branch. As always, time is the main concern.
I've printed out a lot of the articles on wikis, and I will read them tonight.

Addendum on 10/1/07. I read the 30 or so pages I printed on wikis. Now it's time to try something.