The concept of wikis is interesting, especially to one who works in library and information services. Knoweledge dissemination is structured and formalized. Collection development librarians purchase materials based on a certain criteria: an author's knowledge, a reputable publisher. A cataloger organizes a book's information in a standardized manner. Journal articles are peer-reviewed. You get the idea. Those of us who love information love to organize it and take control over it! We're knowledge authoritarians!
Library Success: a Best Practices Wiki is an example of presenting knowledge in an informal way, and information listed on a wiki is not necessarily written by an expert. Wiki's are egalitarian. They're collaborative. Is this good?
I think wikis like the one above can be useful in that it is maintained for the most part by a group of professionals. I came across a section of "Library Success" that deals with my area of library services: adult programming. The section included "ideas for adult programming", a list of related blogs and web sites, and links to articles. I even found a reference to a library that had created a database of programs, something I am interested in since I'm collaborating with a colleague to create a programming database as tool for our branch librarians to use in program planning.
So are wikis useful in other instances? The granddaddy of all wikis is the ubiquitous Wikipedia. The jury is still out for me on whether or not this is a reliable source of information. I cringe when students cite "Wikipedia" as a source, especially when they are doing an essay on an easy-to-find subject that can be found in the easy-to-use World Book Encyclopedia.
Namaste.
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