This is an article review I wrote for our Information Technology class. This article is drawn from Ariadne, which is a great online magazine: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/. It’s a UK magazine which is nice – I find everything I read from the library world is North American, so it’s good to get off the continent once in awhile. The language is a bit technical, but not too much; certain articles will push you out of your comfort zone, but since the content is entirely focused on technology in libraries and information centres, it’s never too far from home.
I can’t remember what the original assignment told us to do, but I basically turned it into a literature review of how people interact with wikis (a sparse topic, to be sure). This is a topic that is near and dear to me – people always get excited about implementing new technologies, but of course you have to win over people’s hearts and minds if you ever want that technology to be used. I’m facing this challenge in my work at the Library of Parliament this summer. I am creating a large e-resource that will be used by all the parliamentary librarians, and hopefully by the public as well. I’m acutely aware however, that I must conscientiously ensure that the technology is usable, but also that I show people how to use it and why they should use it. I’ll have to draw on information literacy principles to ensure that my work doesn’t go to waste simply because I ignored the most important part of it: The people using it!!
Guy, M. (2006). Wiki or won’t he? A tale of public sector wikis. [Electronic version]. Ariadne, October (49). Retrieved October 17 2007, from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/guy/
In the article, “Wiki or Won’t He? A Tale of Public Sector Wikis”, author Marieke Guy discusses wiki technology and its applicability in the public sector. As a member of the Interoperability Focus team at UKOLN, a centre for digital information management, Guy has written many articles concerning issues of web services in the library environment for online periodicals such as Adriane and d-lib. The aim of this article is to assess wiki use in the public sector, and suggest the means to extend and improve its application.
