Unit 12

"Using a Wiki to Manage a Library Instruction Program"

By using a wiki librarian instructors will be more informed because they can share, facilitate, and collaborate more easily with one another for resources and classroom ideas/materials. Using wikis for library instruction has two main uses: the sharing of knowledge and the ability to cooperate in creating resources. An example is at the Charles C. Sherrod Library at East Tennessee State University, the library instruction program has a wiki to share knowledge (such as unforeseen assignment directions that weren't clear) and to collaborate resources (place their pre-existing handouts on the wiki to reflect the new information given out).

"Creating the Academic Library Folksonomy"

I thought this article was interesting because it gave us an idea of del.icio.us outside our own experience (of using citeulike for an assignment and the hands on point for del.icio.us). Uses the site such as Citeulike to talk about "bookmarking" pages on the Internet, so you don't lose your bookmarks of pages when you move from one computer to the other. "Such sites allow users to share these tags and discover new Internet resources through common subject headings...called a folksonomy - a taxonomy created by ordinary folks. If applied to library use, librarians could create pages for students to refer to "good," solid academic articles that they may have trouble finding. I was eager to start my own site and possible when I do a field placement at a public library to introduce the idea as a possible project.

"Weblogs"

• A weblog is a blog which is a website that resembles a personal journal that is updated with individual entries or postings
• A distinguished feature of blogs is its automatically archiving entries
• They cover almost anything - a big trend is that people are covering current issues that are academic in nature which is causing a shift in how some groups communicate
• Blogs are so popular because of the simple "out-of-the-box" concept which allow for the creation and maintenance of blogs. There are many different kinds from the free and simple blogs to the "robust packages."
• Librarians can use blogs for projects, training, scheduling, reference, and team management. Librarians can also encourage students to use blogs for their assignments or projects

"Jimmy Wales: How a Ragtag Band Created Wikipedia"

• Wikipedia (WP) was a radical idea
• How it works from the inside: Wiki is a NPO, goal is to get Wikipedia to everyone in order to help them make better informed decisions; but this means more than just through the Internet and this is why they chose the free licensing model so that people could copy it and distribute it
• Cost - 5,000 dollars for bandwidth a year plus one employee, Brian who is the software developer
• Quality - not perfect, there are weaknesses, but much better quality than you would expect
• How do they manage quality? Mostly social policies, especially with the rule of neutrality which is they don't talk about the "truth" or "objectivity" - get a lot more work done this way when they don't mill around about controversial issues with a topic
• When something changes - creates a change page which can be changed back to the original (such as in case of vandalism)
• Jim needs some control, but he sticks to the rules (and so do the other people who are voted into powerful positions in the Wiki community)
• Stated (by Jim) that there is a wide-held belief that all academic and teachers hate it, he says it is not true - but I think there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that it is still so at many colleges
• Wiki People Project - take 20 years or so - give people materials that they can use and understand all over the world, in all kinds of social positions and learning levels (you can't give someone who never had the chance to go to high school an encyclopedia written for college level and expect them to get something out of it)

Mudiest Point - This has to do with this weeks hands on assignment. What is the big difference (in academic opinion) between CiteULike and Del.iou.us?