#16 Wiki Me This

I have become a real fan of wikis as I see it as a comfortable middle ground between the tech savvy and the more traditional librarians; between the open access idea and the more fix site format, and between the free-for all anyone can add content to the site selected by the professional. The examples given were good examples of what is out there. Many wikis from public libraries that I have gone to do not let users alter content, but may send them to an area where they can, and some are the anyone-can-post variety. Some are a combo. I am a big fan of Wikipedia and have gotten much information that might be considered trivial (anything I would want to pass on to someone else or is important does have to be verified). However, using a wiki for community information seems the easiest, and most useful, for community based libraries like ours. We just completed our assignments on Web 2.0, which scares a lot of traditionalist (including me, a little), however, what better venue for a wiki then coordinating a wiki for community resources. I remembers soon after I first started working at Queens Library that we used hundreds of hours of librarian time to compile a community database. Wouldn't it be best to now have the actual community participate in an endeavor such as this? I think it would be a great start, both for the library and staff and for the community for when they are prepared to start doing more, they, and we, will be ready for the next level.