October 23, Thing 8, Wikis

Wikis is one of the reference tools we use at the library. Some times Wikipedia has more information than many other sources. I like Wikipedia and the concept behind it, I like wiki and the methodology of the open open source. I assume for many people who came from "old" academical world, Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. Several years ago, a research been done by the Nature magazine, where they compared results in Britannica and Wikipedia. When they summarised everything, it was quite clear that Wikipedia is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica. As librarians, we almost always use several sources for information, that's why I think W. is a great reference tool. The idea of "radical trust" is even more applicable for the library community. Establish Wikis for the library, we'll be able to have close contacts with our patron and colleagues; we'll be able to put out information in a timely manner, avoid going through the lairs of censorship. As we all know libraries should change, and using wikis is one of thous very positive changes where "radical trust" between librarians and patrons could occur. I can picture Reference Wikis, Business Wikis, Teen Wikis, etc, as a part of our library web site.
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