Week 9: Wikis and Rollyo

Listen to audio here

Wikis

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools, but with benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

Some of the benefits that make the use of wikis so attractive are:

• Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
• Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
• Earlier versions of a page can be rolled back and viewed when needed.
• Users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.
  

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.

Discovery Exercise:
1. For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some library wikis and blog about your findings.
Here are a few examples to get you started:

• SJCPL Subject Guides – a pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system.
• Yarra Plenty Reader's Advisory wiki.
  
• Book Lovers Wiki - developed by the Princeton Public Library.
• Library Success: A best practices wiki
• CSLA Conference 2007 wiki – an example of a wiki created to support a specific event.
• The Albany County Public Library Staff wiki – an example of a wiki created for library staff to document procedures.
• Library Bloggers Wiki
• Yarra Plenty Training Wiki
  
• Sample school wiki
• Sample Literary Circle Wiki (10th Grade English)
• Sample AP World History Wiki
• http://teacherlibrarianwiki.pbwiki.com/
• Other library wiki examples such as library instruction.

2. Create a blog post about your findings. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries and schools might work well with a wiki?

Discovery Resources:

Use these resources to learn more about wikis:

New Zealand Police Act Wiki

New Zealand Government Wiki

· Wiki, wiki, wiki - from the Core Compentency blog of the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County.
· Wikis: A Beginner’s Look – an excellent short slide presentation that offers a short introduction and examples.
· What is a Wiki? – Library Success wiki presentation.
· Using Wikis to Create Online Communities – a good overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.

Do you have a group of websites that are your favorites? Or a set of online resources that are similar that you frequently use to answer homework or reference questions? Well Rollyo may be the tool for you. Rollyo allows you to create your own search tool for the just the websites you know and trust.

Take a look at some of these search rolls that have already been created:
Public Domain e-Books Search
Rare Book Library Search
Free Photos
Quick Quotes
Explore other rolls here.
Here’s searchroll created to search ten of the Reference sites listed in SJLibrary's WIReD.Try a search for broad term like "homework” or “history” to see results listed from multiple sites.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Explore Rollyo and create an account for yourself.


2. Create a search roll for any subject you like.


3. Create a post in your blog about your experience and link to your search roll. Can you see a potential use for tools like this?

OPTIONAL: Add your searchroll to your blog using the "Create a Searchbox" tool.
Select...Reference. Search The Web

Rollyo - You just never know when this little tool might come in handy.