I've now done some reading about wikis, expanding my horizons far beyond Wikipedia. From conversations I've had with other librarians, it seems I'm more comfortable with the "everybody can edit" concept than some. Sure, there will be some additions or changes that are suspect, but that's life. I've been given to understand, and truly believe, that there are plenty of people out there just waiting to correct errors the second that they pop into a wiki. It's like anything else you read, in any format; you've got to stay alert, because seeing it in writing doesn't necessarily make it true.
I would really like to see some BCPL wikis soon. For years, it seemed that BCPL ran on big blue notebooks of information, policy, and procedures that generally stayed up-to-date for the first three minutes after they were distributed. Even the looseleaf format couldn't guarantee that what you read was correct. Wouldn't a policy wiki be great? We are getting more and more used to getting all kinds of information from a computer screen (and many of us have mostly relied on computer screens for information since birth now), and an information source that could be updated as soon as whatever committee or team or individual decided on the change would be extremely handy.
The idea of customer wikis is great, too. What a readers' advisory source! All those bagful-a-week readers checking to see what their favorite recommender (staff or public) suggested, and then putting in a few ideas of their own!
And, as Meridith Farkas reports in the article "Using Wikis to Create Online Communities," when she set up a wiki for the Chicago ALA convention, it headed out in all kinds of useful directions she hadn't even thought of. I want to see this happen for BCPL!
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