I've been gleaning info from Wikipedia for the last couple of years now. So it's refreshing that I'm discovering all these "niche" wikis that can give me a better flow of information about a specific subject.
I was a bit disappointed, though, with the lack of breadth of subjects for library wikis, especially the public library ones. I thought there would be lively articles on library management subjects, for example, that would have a certain back and forth debate. There was little. Oh, sure, there were library mission statements and some project management stuff, but not what I expected.
The library wikis did better when it came to providing info to their public. The Bull Run Library wiki was chock full of reader's advisory and online catalog info. Grand Rapids PL had seemingly everything linked: from their reader's resources to the presidential candidates' webpages to Wall Street Journal's D3 Conference. The D3 blog was cool: this techie was ticked because at this "all things digital" conference the organizers pulled the plug on the WiFi in the conference room. A great debate lingers on whether people should be connected with back info while their getting fore info. And I thought asking people to turn their cell phones off during church services was tough!
But I digress. What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki? Well, from what I've seen-- the forerunners in the field are giving us good examples for keeping their customers informed. I would like to see more research and management topics covered. I think we need to share our best practices with one another and get an ongoing dialog established. Wikis would be perfect for that! Consider it, if you will, the old "water cooler effect" where some of the best (and most risky) ideas of an organization or field are discussed around the water cooler, not at formal meetings. The "wiki water cooler" -- it has a certain ring to it, ya think?
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