Are you considering about taking the plunge into the planet of internet two. with your library and producing a wiki? I not too long ago put collectively a successful wiki for my college library and so I would like to share some results tips for how to do it successfully.

1. Which wiki platform are you going to use? This is essential due to the fact there are hundreds of them out there and they all vary in terms of ease of use, price tag, and setup as properly as the capability to control who can view your wiki as nicely as who can post to your wiki.

2. Do you want to use your wiki exclusively as a approach of organizing and changing material on your internet site? Or do you want to use the wiki to enable your patrons to interact with every single other?

three. What is the exact goal for your wiki? To communicate in between library employees? To communicate with your patrons? To let your patrons communicate with every single other?

4. What content are you going to contain on your wiki? Just hyperlinks to other pages on your library internet website, a searchable library catalog, facts about library classes and events, common books, news and announcements or other products?

5. Do you want to spend for a wiki service or do you want to use a absolutely free wiki?

six. Is there a tech help individual obtainable to help you install your wiki and to assist with some periodic upkeep? If not, do you have a librarian who can take charge of the wiki and its updates and the technological side of keeping a wiki? A wiki is a lot less difficult to use and retain up with on a regular site, even so, you cannot just put it up and by no means commit time working on it.

7. The hidden wiki url aids if you can develop some wiki certain content material. In our case we created topic pages for each and every of the key subjects taught at our college and integrated links to databases, magazines, books, ebooks, specialized encyclopedias and web-sites for each subject. We also have our library news and policies amongst other items of interest to our patrons on our wiki. You have to have to give your patrons a purpose to read the wiki and to use it.

8. Wikis are a single of the technologies of the future and as far more and a lot more libraries and other enterprises begin employing them, it is to your advantage to understand how to use a single and to decide if it is suitable for your library.