Week Seven: Thing # 16

Libraries all over the country have begun to use wikis to collaborate and share knowledge.

I particularly liked the BookLoversWiki developed by the Princeton Public Library at http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library The page was easy to navigate with the Index to Reviews being clearly laid out. Each book has an annotation and a ranking and an image of the book cover makes the page attractive. This page has given me lots of good ideas which I’d like to emulate in my school library. I would like to get a Book Group of students together and a wiki, where the students can contribute, would be a terrific way to boost ‘attendance’.

The Albany County Public Library staff wiki which provides documentation to library staff on how to do things is a wonderful idea – a sort of on-line procedure manual. I had a close look at their statistics information and their technology plan. The Circulation Desk section would prove a boon to school library subs. We do have one in a binder but having the information in an on-line format with the ability to hyperlink headings would allow for easy and immediate access.

The Blogging Libraries Wiki was terrific. The purpose of this wiki is to collect links to library blogs. There is a wealth of information under School Libraries. http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?title=School_libraries

Teacherlibrarianwiki at http://teacherlibrarianwiki.pbwiki.com/ maintained my Joyce Valenza gives many examples of how Web 2.0 applications can be used to create useful professional tools for librarians and patrons. Check out the booklists for high school students, information literacy models, Must Have Graphic Novels for secondary schools – so many good things here…