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Leveraging Wikis for Information Services: Principles and Practical Insights

Discover the principles and practicalities of using wikis in information services as outlined by ACU's Electronic Services Librarian, Peter Blake. This guide covers the rationale behind adopting wikis, how to effectively plan and implement a wiki, and the evaluation of its impact on reference services. It discusses the differences between amateur and professional reference, the intricacies of the wiki paradigm, and the importance of community involvement. Gain insights into creating a reliable knowledge base to support user needs and promote collaborative information sharing.

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Leveraging Wikis for Information Services: Principles and Practical Insights

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  1. Using a wiki forinformation services:principles and practicalities Peter Blake Electronic Services Librarian peter.blake@acu.edu.au

  2. Overview • ACU reference desk manual • Why a wiki? • The wiki paradigm • Planning and implementation • Evaluation • Amateur vs. professional reference • Closing remarks

  3. ACU reference desk manual • Previous practice • Desired advantages • Accuracy • Currency • Ease of use

  4. Why a wiki? • “The simplest database that could possibly work” (Ward Cunningham) • Wikipedia must be doing something right

  5. The wiki paradigm • Web-based • Broken links are encouraged • Life cycle of a wiki page: • Links • Stubs • Pages • Subdivided pages

  6. Planning and implementation • What is your wiki’s purpose? • Features • Language and database • Community • Scope • How much structure?

  7. Theseus and Tarzan

  8. ACU wiki: structure • Loose hierarchy of topics covered by existing manual • Links between information • Maximum depth • Welcome and help text

  9. Planning and implementation (2) • Unique syntax (in many cases) • Adaptation of previous practice • Collaboration and human nature • Continuing maintenance

  10. RefDeskEManual home page

  11. RefDeskEManual content page

  12. ACU wiki: evaluation • Missing features • To link or not to link? • Training and roll-out • Migration • RefTracker

  13. Amateur reference services vs. professional reference services • Elements of an information service • Determination of user need • Information gathering • Communication back to user • Wikipedia’s reference desk • U.S. university wikis

  14. Wikipedia’s reference desk

  15. Oregon State University’s Reference Desk Manager

  16. Butler University's Butler WikiRef

  17. Amateur vs. professional • Subsets and facets • Commitment • Pomerantz: “Because it exists, naïve users are going to use Wikipedia … it’s our professional responsibility to make Wikipedia a reliable information source.” • “Naïve users”? • Naïve information specialists? • Citizendium

  18. The wiki paradigm (2) • Collective editing • Presumption of quality • Vandalism and edit wars • “Be bold”

  19. Closing remarks • Don’t use a wiki • Just because wikis are in vogue • For mostly static information • Where delays are acceptable • Wikis don’t naturally promote • Expertise • Provenance • Completion

  20. Closing remarks (2) • Wikis need • Community • Planning and management • Wikis suit information that • needs continual irregular updates by many users • cannot usefully be arranged into a strong hierarchy • requires consensus

  21. Closing remarks (3) • Two-way information flow • Trends • Abstraction • Speed • Independence from authority

  22. Questions?

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