Thing # 16 Wikis

Wikis are the ultimate collaborative workspace - whether created by the worldwide online community for mass collaboration or whether utilised by workplace colleagues to develop and share corporate knowledge behind a firewall. I believe that "wikinomics" is the new work paradigm of the future. In our own particular environment, the valuable content we rely on contained in Libnet could easily be migrated to a workplace wiki accessibile by LIS staff. Information can be very easily searched, quickly updated and seamlessly maintained by all in the network. All versions of documents are available via the 'History' functionality of the wiki, so an authoritative archive of content is ensured. Discussion of issues relating to a particular wiki article can be carried out on the wiki itself without the necessity for circulating numerous emails containing documents which need to be saved to be viewed by recipients. Once consensus is reached on the wiki 'Discussion' section, updates are made to the wiki article which is now available for all in the group to see.

Thing #15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

From initially just reading about web 2.0 innovations and now really using these emerging technologies, I see the potential application they have in our own special library network,. I am realising how much of the way we work is based on collecting for the 'just in case' library - whether in print, or in electronic format (ie. inhouse databases). Our clients demand web based content but we continue to do what we have always done......

The "Away for the icebergs" article really brought home to me how we extend the "just in case" approach to client skilling as well - expecting people to attend a traditional training session - yet there may not be an immediate application for that learning in the real world back in the business line. Let's be the experts who provide access to information content that clients can easily access but also interact with and enrich with their knowledge and experiences, rather than being 'gophers' of information and 'preachers' for learning.