Wikis

I am going to start out this post by telling everyone a little bit about Wikis and why I think they are important tool that many businesses should use.

First of all, let me define what a wiki is:  Wikis are websites that allow users to add, modify, or delete content from a web browser.  Wikis are great tools that allow for collaboration and may be useful for many things.  Wikis are used to house important documents that need to be accessible for many people or training devices for new employees.  Wikis are created through on a website that utilizes a type of wiki software.  They are useful for producing and saving documents that are accessible to the public or made private for a specific group of people.

I currently work at a library where we have implemented a wiki for both staff collaboration and for training purposed.  It was created so that there was a general space that all workers could access to read policies and procedures.  Once we found out that that was successful for saving and editing policies and procedures, I then took one section of it that I use as a training manual.  New staff and student workers have access to this section in order to learn about different procedures, or as a fall back guide for finding information. 

This Wiki is a great tool that offers many features and opportunities.  Setting up a wiki is easy; getting others to use it can be somewhat more difficult.  We found that everyone supported the idea at our library in the beginning, but once the application was produced, it took a while to get everyone on board and using it.  Now that the wiki has been created and operational, many staff and student workers have embraced it and use it on a daily basis for logging shelf reading sections and other work expectations.  Wikis offer endless possibilities; in my next blog, I will give some examples of wiki websites and explain more on how to start your own wiki.