WEEK 5 WIKIS

The more I look into new technologies the more I realise I have so much to learn. I have enjoyed searching wikis and some of those I have looked at appear to have content similar to web pages or blogs with their main point of difference being the ability to edit the content. I checked out the Montana History wiki and SJCPL as well as some of the others. I clicked on edit facility in each of the wikis I checked (all in the name of research) and all with the exception of the Mint Museum required a password prior to editing so there is at last some content/editorial control. The Mint Museum did not appear to have any edit facility that I could see. Having a password prior to editing a wiki at least provides some control over the editing function.

I checked out the entry for State Library of New South Wales in Wikipedia the initial search provided 1721 hits ranging from most relevant to least. While the content on SLNSW was general covering a brief overview on the history of the library I was curious and amused to see a reference to Duran Duran having done the photoshoot for the cover of their Seven and the Ragged Tiger album (not something I knew abouth the library before today).

For comparative purposes I also checked out the Wikipedia entry for National Library of Australia and I noticed straight away that they had a dialog box with links to their collections, Pictures Australia, Libraries Australia and so on very clearly visible. While there are external links from the SLNSW entry in Wikipedia to the collections it is located at the bottom of the page and and as such is a little lost. Perhaps the links to our collections might be better off placed in a more visible position somewhere close to the beginning paragraphs, maybe before Duran Duran gets a look in. I get the impression that people searching on Wikipedia may be looking for information in a hurry and may never actually read to the end of the entry. It was interesting to note that National Library of Australia, State Library of Victoria and Library of Congress all appear to have used a similar template in Wikipedia.