Part of Blue 2.0 this week is to create a wiki. We were asked to use PBWiki as our platform.
So tonight I started playing with it. I had a hard time coming up with something to use a wiki for. Some of my thoughts were to use a wiki as a place to store and easily revise cataloging procedures. I could also make a page of Music Subject Headings, but I don't know enough about subject headings to do it justice. Finally, I decided that a wiki would be a great way to keep track of a family tree. So that's what I did.
It's kind of small right now, only a few pages, but I hope to add more soon and let other family members add pages as well. You can check it out here: Kerri's Family Tree. I made this wiki private, I don't know if that restricts access or not even if you have the link. I may have to actually "invite" you to the page.
Setting up an account on pbwiki was pretty easy. Trying to figure out what to put on the pages was a little trickier. Also, I decided to delete a page that I created and it took me a while to figure out how to do that. But I think I got it now.
I can see that using a wiki would be beneficial for collaborative work. I know that the music librarians in the Chicago area set up a wiki for themselves for planning the national Music Library Association meeting to be held there in 2009. I don't know how that is working for them, but it seems like a good way to facilitate communication between a group of people. Probably better than a blog. However, I do kind of wonder if a forum would be a better way to conduct discussions than on a wiki. I'm much less familiar with wikis than I am with blogs and forums. So I will investigate some of the others and play with mine and see how I like them.
Next session: Tagging and online applications.
Kerri, great idea for a wiki. I hadn't thought of using one for genealogy info.
ReplyDeleteI just came back from the SLA Leadership Summit. I organized a wiki for local arrangements information for the meeting. It worked really well and I'd recommend it for other professional meetings--for restaurant recommendations, taxi advice, maps, etc. SLA fortunately has its own wiki service so I just used that, but you could probably do a nice wiki with any of the free wiki software.
Stacey: here's a question about the wiki. If you have an account with pbwiki, can you see the wiki I created? Or is it closed to you as well unless I give you permission to look at it.
ReplyDeleteI friend mentioned to me that she was not able to get to it because it is private. I'm thinking of changing my set-up though to not have information on living relatives, just the deceased.
Although, I am open to suggestions!
Thanks!!