Thing #14: Wikis

Wiki's are a great idea in theory but in practice often they don't work out very well. The University of Calgary wiki (linked to on the playground) is a case in point. It exemplifies the main pitfalls of wikis with respect to content and design. Wikis are worthwhile maintaining only if there are good contributions in most all topic areas. If such comprehensiveness cannot be achieved, a wiki won't be all that useful. Unfortunately, the University of Calgary's wiki fails in this area. Content is sparse, or non existent, across most topics. For example, if you were searching for information on a faculty member, you'd get something if you happened to be looking for the single staff member who has contributed information to the wiki. Adding insult to injury, because headings provided by the wiki software are inadequate, or because they're selected poorly by the wiki's authors, you sort of have to guess what the headings mean in this instance. Most of the remaining content in the wiki is equally sketchy.

The other major pitfall of wikis is that wiki user interfaces (unlike those available with most major blogging applications) commonly are spartan and unappealing. Again, the University of Calgary's wiki is a case in point.

Wikis can be successful (obviously: Wikipedia, one of the best web sites in existence, is a wiki) but they should be undertaken only after thinking carefully about whether the content you wish to create lends itself to the form, and, you can live with the unappealing interface. A wiki that might be useful in the context of a public library is a review wiki. Because there would be few content types (based on media for example) staff could ensure that each area had adequate coverage. With a content filter, members of the public could usefully contribute to it. However, as library web sites become increasingly more sophisticated, and designed to highlight material in dynamic ways (NVDPL's new web site is a case in point) the relative value of wikis lessens. In NVDPL's case, the common wiki interfaces would look kind of poorly next to the snazzy design of the new web site.