6. Add your blog to MRRL's Wiki

In this exercise, you will add your blog information to the Participants page of MRRL's IntraWiki.

1. Go to the MRRL IntraWiki Participants page

2. Find the "Edit" Link at the top of the page

3. Find the "Participants" heading (surrounded by 3 equal signs ===)




4. Under that last persons entry enter your blog's URL by

• typing opening bracket ([),
• the URL of your blog (including the http:// part),
• a space
• the name of your blog.
• the closing bracket (]),
• click the "Save Page" button.
  

Example: [http://bobbiblogs.blogspot.com/ Bobbi]

5. Check the page to make sure your blog's title is in the list of Participants, and click the link to make sure it goes to your blog. If you've mistyped something, click the Edit link again to make your changes.

That's it - you've added your information to the MRRL IntraWiki!

5. Learn About Wikis

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A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

Some of the benefits that make the use of wikis so attractive are:

• Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
• Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
• Earlier versions of a page can be rolled back and viewed when needed.
• And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.

Resources

Use these resources to learn more aboout wikis:

• Wiki, wiki, wiki - from PLCMC's Core Compentency blog
• Wiki’s: A Beginner’s Look – an excellent short slide presentation that offers a short introduction and examples.
• What is a Wiki? – Library Success wiki presentation
• Using Wikis to Create Online Communities – a good overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.

Extra "credit" resources

• Why Wiki? - This online video course will introduce you to the benefits and disadvantages of wikis. Each of the 4 sections is between 10 and 20 minutes long - feel free to just watch part of the sessions if time is an issue!
  

Exercise

For this exercise, you are asked to take a look at some library wikis and blog about your findings.

Here are a few examples to get you started:

• SJCPL Subject Guides – a pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system
• Book Lovers Wiki - developed by the Princeton Public Library
• Library Success: A best practices wiki
• ALA 2006 New Orleans wiki – an example of a wiki created to support a specific event
• The Bull Run Library wiki - a public library wiki and also a Learning 2.0 participant
• iRead wiki - a reader's advisory wiki from some Iowa librarians
  
• Other library wiki examples

Create a blog post about your findings. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?