Thing #16

I am still a little afraid of setting up a wiki myself but the only way to really "get" these 2.0 tools is to hold your nose and jump in. Despite my fears, I see lots of applications for wikis in our school library and at our school. One of the first applications I might attempt will be a type of library procedures wiki. There are only two librarians but for posterity it would be useful to have all of our opening and closing procedures and schedules in a public place, not just in my filing cabinet in a notes file. Notes about updating databases, end-of-year tasks, scheduling could be available on our wiki. Using a wiki to plan for author visits, especially when we are sharing an author with other schools, would be very useful. Just recently we hosted author/illustrator Will Hillenbrand and the emails that went back and forth among the six schools, Will's agent and Will himself were copious! We could really have made it all VERY easy for everyone involved by including his schedule, the information about the ordered books, etc. on a wiki. For our school parents' club, I can see a wiki being extremely useful for our auction-planning committee and even our binders of by-laws and volunteer notebooks. I love the idea of using wikis for more personal information about books to read. We librarians could post recommendations of books to read and the students could comment and make their own recommendations. As you can tell, I'm excited to get started. As always, however, my sails get a little deflated when I talk with our Technology Director about such ideas. We are blocked from most 2.0 tools at school, unless there are specifically "safe" and "for schools" versions.