The 23Things site provided a nice list to begin my investigation into wikis. I have had some experience with wikis in my undergrad work and also in a couple of the Library classes and I have never really cared for wikis. This is probably due to the fact that I always find them cluttery and not really "user-friendly". To my surprise some of the wikis that 23Things had listed proved me wrong. For example, the PBWorks wiki was set up nicely, the information was easy to find, and the wiki did not overload my brain. The thing about wikis is that (if they are done well) they hold tons and tons of information. The user can dig forever and not be done. But PBWorks has a lot of useful information and I bookmarked it for later reference.
At first, using a wiki in the library seemed like a daunting task to me. I kept thinking to myself, "Why would I want students to go into a site and change the information?" "How could I trust the students to add information that is appropriate and meaningful?" After searching through the wikis listed on 23Things, I realized that wikis could be helpful to me when dealing with adults in the library. I could set up a wiki with a weekly calendar for my school library. With the calendar, teachers could easily see what times/periods were available and schedule their classes for library time.
Although I still feel a little uneasy about students using wikis (I teach junior high!) I can see myself using a wiki for student book reviews. I liked the BookLoversWiki and it gave me ideas for the library. When I am eventually in a library, I would like to have a book club. I could have the book club members log into a wiki and write up reviews of books I have in the library. I could then link the book review wiki to my library website so students, teachers, and parents would be able to see the wonderful books available in the library.
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