How to Create and Use a Wiki in Your Library

Are you considering about taking the plunge into the planet of net two. with your library and producing a wiki? I not too long ago put together a successful wiki for my college library and so I would like to share some achievement strategies for how to do it successfully.

1. Which wiki platform are you going to use? This is important mainly because there are hundreds of them out there and they all differ in terms of ease of use, cost, and setup as nicely as the ability to manage who can view your wiki as well as who can post to your wiki.

2. Do you want to use your wiki exclusively as a process of organizing and changing material on your website? Or do you want to use the wiki to permit your patrons to interact with each other?

three. What is the exact objective for your wiki? To communicate between library workers? To communicate with your patrons? To let your patrons communicate with every other?

four. What content are you going to contain on your wiki? Just links to other pages on your library web web site, a searchable library catalog, information about library classes and events, popular books, news and announcements or other products?

five. Do you want to pay for a wiki service or do you want to use a free wiki?

six. Is there a tech help individual available to enable you set up your wiki and to assist with some periodic upkeep? If not, do you have a librarian who can take charge of the wiki and its updates and the technological side of preserving a wiki? A wiki is a lot less difficult to use and keep up with on a typical internet site, even so, you can’t just put it up and never spend time working on it.

7. It also aids if you can develop some wiki particular content. In our case we designed subject pages for each of the main subjects taught at our college and integrated links to databases, magazines, books, ebooks, specialized encyclopedias and websites for each and every subject. We also have our library news and policies amongst other products of interest to our patrons on our wiki. Deep web links need to have to give your patrons a reason to study the wiki and to use it.

eight. Wikis are one of the technologies of the future and as a lot more and far more libraries and other corporations start utilizing them, it is to your benefit to learn how to use one particular and to make a decision if it is suitable for your library.