Wikis and libraries

From PLN

Wikis and libraries

1 Wiki basics
2 Why should you care?
- 2.1 A few library-related wikis
3 Related articles and resources
4 Your turn: Talk about it

What's a wiki--and why should you care as a library leader?

Wiki basics

Wiki software provides lightweight content management and fairly easy web publication--but that's also true of blog software, and the two are quite different.

Definitions

A wiki is a set of web pages created and managed using wiki software.

That's usually true and the only definition that applies to all wikis--but it's not very useful.

Here's a definition that's typical of wiki enthusiasts but happens to be wrong (source: Wikis for Dummies, Dan Woods & Peter Thoeny, Wiley, 2007):

A wiki is a collection of Web pages that anyone can edit.

PALINET Leadership Network (PLN) is a wiki. Currently, only a few hundred people can edit PLN pages. Thus, this definition is simply wrong--except as it may define a "true wiki," by which standards very few popular wikis these days are true wikis.

Wikipedia's definition (as copied on May 1, 2008) is a little more complicated but gets at the key elements that make wikis wikis:

A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.

This definition includes three key elements here in addition to the true but over-general first six words:

"designed to allow anyone who accesses it..."': Limits on universal editing are increasingly common but not the norm--and, unlike many other content management systems, wikis begin by assuming universal edit capability.
"...to contribute or modify content...": Wikis are designed to make it easy for any wiki user not only to contribute new content but to edit what's already there. The general ability to edit other people's contributions, and have those edits appear immediately, is distinctly part of wikis. On most blogs, you can add a new comment on someone else's post--but unless you own the blog, you can neither modify the post itself nor edit someone else's comment. By their nature, wikis tend to encourage collaborative authorship.
"...using a simplified markup language": Wiki enthusiasts claim that HTML "is not very legible, making it hard to edit," and most wiki software uses "wikitext" conventions for markup instead of HTML--sometimes exclusively, sometimes along with HTML. Is wikitext (or "are wikitext," since the rules differ for different wiki programs) really simpler and more intuitive than HTML tags? Here's the brief table for PLN markup--fairly typical of MediaWiki wikis. Draw your own conclusions.

Characteristics

Wikipedia's entry (at least as of May 1) offers a good quick overview of wiki characteristics, summarized here (noting that not all wikis have all or any of these characteristics):

Typically open to contribution and editing by all users with no software other than a standard web browser, using a simplified plain-text markup system.
Strongly hyperlinked, with trivially easy links between pages within a wiki and ways to see what pages link to the current page, in addition to easy ways to link to external internet resources.
New pages and modifications normally appear immediately, without review.
Each version of a page is retained, as are a history of changes and the ability to compare different versions ("diff") and roll back changes.
The need for specific new pages is frequently indicated by linking to pages that don't yet exist; such links appear in a distinctive color until the linked-to page actually has text.
Typically navigable through title searching and full-text searching in addition to interarticle links and other navigation tools such as categories.

One other defining characteristic comes from Ward Cunningham, originator of the wiki concept and name, but the first sentence is arguably false for a great many wikis:

A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.

Software

There are too many wiki programs to list. Wikipedia's comparison table includes at least fifty different programs. WikiMatrix, a comparison site you may find useful, includes more than 90.

The most visible wiki software is MediaWiki, free/open source software originally written for Wikipedia--if only because it's used for Wikipedia, the most visible wiki.

It's also used for PLN and for some of the most widely-used library wikis, including LISWiki and Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. MediaWiki is almost certainly the dominant software for library-related wikis, used for more of them than all other wiki programs combined.

A few other examples:

Several library-related wikis use PBwiki, known for ease of use and available as a free hosted service. (You can recognize PBwiki wikis by the distinctive URLs ending in wikiname.pbwiki.com.)
Several library-related wikis use PmWiki, open source software typically used on the library's own domain (as is MediaWiki).
SeedWiki is used (as a hosted service) by more thanlibrary project. (Hosted SeedWiki wikis appear to use www.seedwiki.com as a domain, with the specific wiki name following the first slash.)
At least one library-related project uses XWiki, one of several wiki programs that incorporates blogs within the engine. It is open source software and can be used as a hosted service but is more commonly installed on an institution's own servers.

Why should you care?

Library leaders should care about and know about wikis for at least three good reasons:

A growing number of library-related wikis, including those mentioned here and more than three dozen at ALA, provide key collaborative resources for libraries and librarianship. Increasingly, you can anticipate using and contributing to wikis as part of ongoing professional involvement.
Wikis can be effective tools within libraries, either in the traditional open-editing mode (with some safeguards against spam) or in more restricted installations. Wikis can increase patron involvement with libraries, but they can also be used as staff-only resources to help staff collaborate on common issues. Examples include collaborative subject guides, reference wikis, focused resource guides, community wikis--and even wiki-based front ends to online catalogs, making user-generated reviews and comments trivially easy.
Wikis aren't going away. Your patrons (and your staff) are using Wikipedia. They may also benefit from Citizendium, the scholars-only, peer-reviewed Scholarpedia, the Eduzendium project within Citizendium, the dictionary (and more) Wiktionary, the how-to compendium wikiHow and other growing wiki-based resources.

While it would be nonsensical to say that every library should have a wiki, the results of easy collaborative writing projects are such that every library should have at least one staff member who's reasonably familiar with wikis and how they work--and at least one who's following key library-related wikis in addition to PLN.

A few library-related wikis

LISWiki, the Library and Information Science Wiki, was launched on June 30, 2005 by John Hubbard. As of early May 2008, this open project includes more than 1,300 articles. While spam continues to be a problem (one that Hubbard and others actively address), LISWiki also shows strong editorial activity from a wide range of contributors. It's a good place to find and add to lists of chat reference libraries, library blogs and blogs by library people, and a great many articles and commentaries on aspects of librarianship.
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki, "was created to be a one-stop shop for great ideas and information for all types of librarians." Begun by Meredith Farkas in mid-2005, this popular wiki is also a strong collaborative resource. While anyone can view Library Success, this wiki is now editable only by registered users because of vandalism problems.
PALINET Leadership Network is, to date, less collaborative in content creation than some other library-related wikis and focuses on topics related to leadership and topics to inform library leaders.
ALA wikis is itself a wiki that leads to a wide range of wikis for ALA projects and groups, as well as conference-specific wikis.
The Blogging Libraries Wiki is a narrowly-focused wiki devoted to library blogs (not librarian blogs, for which LISWiki is the best single resource).
Open Access Directory is a wiki for factual information (not narrative or commentary) about the open access movement.
LibraryWikis "is a wiki about wikis used in libraries," largely developed by Matthew Bejune as a companion to a resarch article published in Information Technology and Libraries.
For wikis within specific libraries and other library-related wikis, your best resources may be LibraryWikis, the Wikis page in Library Success and the Wikis page in LISWiki.

by Walt Crawford, originally published May 2, 2008. Resources and other information came from sources mentioned in this article, specifically including Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki.