Which of the library wiki examples did you consider most effective & why?
Looking over the examples of library wikis in this week's folder, I was quite impressed by the versatility of the wikis. Some were rather simple & obvious in their wiki-ness while others, such as that of The University of South Carolina Aiken Gregg-Graniteville Library, looks like a standard library homepage. In fact, the only notable difference that I could see between the library's wiki & a paid for homepage or OPAC is the subtle note in the left side bar stating that it is powered by PmWiki and that it is the product of free software.
However, I thought the most effective wiki was the Antioch University New England Library Staff Training and Support Wiki. Now, that might very well be due to the fact that I would love to have a similar set-up at my library. In fact, I am downright envious of this library & its fabulous wiki. We've always passed information around by e-mail & word of mouth & I think we would function at a much higher level if we implemented something along these lines. With all of the information regarding a library's operations & procedures available in one place library staff are undoubtedly able to serve their users far better than a library where only certain staff members know the answers to certain questions ever could, regardless of how hardworking & well-meaning the staff.
I absolutely agree, having a wiki to help staff members with troubleshooting and day-to-day issues that come up is invaluable. And perhaps the reason they have made their wiki public is to give other libraries the idea that they can implement this themselves. I know from experience that all too often an email will be sent with some new procedure and it promptly gets deleted or forgotten. A support and training wiki could have all those procedures accessible from a single page.
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