Wikis Wikis Wikis Wikis......
Well to be brutally honest the jury is still out here. Apart from 'Wikipedia' I never knew there were personal or professional applications available. Yup; another learning curve today.
However the imagination and logic needed to apply this within the 'Library or Information' industry is on holiday. I 'spose there is some good arguments in the 'for' side but in my case unless I'm out there using it day by day it just doesn't grab me. Think that would be the only way I could be bought around. A full day Personal Development session by a service hooked on it, done the studies and with a viable network to other users would be well worth my while. Not that I want someone to SELL it to me, I just don't, well I just don't...Someone to open my eye's is possibly what I'm getting at. Then I could objectively give an opinion.
Many many hours have been spent searching for these little lovelies. Not easily found. Maybe I should say not a lot up to date, very interesting - to my mind or within my criteria. I certainly didn't start with the 'criteria', very broad searching is what I began with.Some of the methods I used were Wikipedia, Google, Google Blog, Technorati ( I know stabs in the dark) and recommended class links (which I really didn't want to utilise finding my own was far more important to me), as well as looking at home pages to some blogs I follow.
Nothing catching me for inspiration to write about here. A couple of Wikis that looked like a good idea, had a lot of work on them and then not utilised to their fullest are Library Goddess and Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki both dated 2006. Giving me the impression Wikis have been a flash in the pan. A large amount of time and effort sadly wasted.
At the National Library of Australia my Wiki search came up with the definition of one and the State Library of New South Wales takes me to a blog but still nothing within my criteria...and more and more I find are all done in the last decade! I heard UTAS uses them but all I could find was how to cite them.
I even tried searching for Rare Books. Now that was interesting, all of my hits came up with blogs relating to GAMES with the words rare and books and how to play the game.
Can you feel me getting rather 'frustrated'??? Time to have a break and check out what fellow class mates have come up with. Am I soo glad I did this! I found something that piqued my curiosity.
ULCAT Wiki published by the University of Limerick contained a good variety of 'Useful Websites for Cataloguers'. This includes information such as: 'about' the University, Tools, LC Authorities to Miscellaneous and Library Wikis.
Up to date and still keeping me interested I decide to check out the Dictionary section. The German one to be precise, have a daughter who has just come back from an exchange and wondered if it would help. It wasn’t quite what I expected – more like a magazine on line and then into the Miscellaneous section at….yes you guessed it ‘Bookbinding and the conservation of books’.
SMILING SMILING SMILING SMILING
Do you see me smiling?
Do you see me smiling?
Finally something within my criteria! YAY!!!
I had to suffer pop up window of ads first on my way to a new place called Etherington and Roberts tried it twice but not too sure if it is a website, blog or wiki – not loading correctly- grrr…computers. So I hit a link ‘color plates’ and get a wonderful page of photographs! Oh just yumm Just beautiful.
There is also 'A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology' Still not sure what I’ve linked into – looks the same – not loaded correctly or just baaaad web design???? Obviously ‘baaaad web design’ is what it is; as I have come from something called ‘Useful websites for cataloguers’. Not sure if this is too useful for them as I couldn’t find anything ‘catalogue’ related on the surface. On further study skimming through the Preface. I find it could be worthwhile for them. ‘Cool’ are the people responsible and I quote…
“…an online resource operated by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation is a full text library of conservation information, covering a wide spectrum of topics of interest to those involved with the conservation of library, archives and museum materials. It is a growing online resource for conservators, collection care specialists, and other conservation professionals…”
Not a ‘Wiki’ but it came from a 'Wiki' and again we come across something non Australian….but it fits my ‘criteria topic!’
In the end I came to the conclusion 'networking' in industry was the only way I was going to come up with anything worthwhile.
Glucksman Library, University of Limerick, Ireland. (2011). UL Cataloguer's Desktop. Available: http://ulcat.wikia.com/wiki/ULCat . Last accessed 24 Jul 2011
Etherington & Roberts. (2011). Bookbinding and conservation of books. Available: http://cool.conservation-us.org/. Last accessed 24 Jul 2011
Thanks also to Danielle's Library Blog
Wow Chrissie
ReplyDeleteThis is a very long post. If you want people to read posts properly it is good to stick to the max of about 200 words. Remember the mnemonic - tldr - too long didn't read. This is really important to remember in the e-age with emails and blog posts!
having said that, your Etherington site is not a wiki because it is not interactive -- it is a web site and probably a type of database. teh love goddess is a blog.
Wikis are really good for manuals - making them much more accessible in an e-format than in print.
Yeah didn't realise it was sooooo long! And yes I had worked out and I've mentioned it wasn't a blog but a badly designed (in my humble opinion) website and yes the 'Goddess' one is a blog that goes to it's own Wiki that had a lot of time invested into it but sadly hasn't been utilised.
ReplyDeleteYou have certainly put in a lot of time for this unit Chrissie with your postings, comments and of course all the research. I bet you this hard work will pay off in the long run.
ReplyDelete