I've found working with a Wiki over this past week to be an interesting experience. I've toyed with the idea of setting up a Wiki in the past, even going so far as to download the software from Wikimedia and opening my trusty FTP client with every intention of getting started. But for whatever reason I've never actually gotten around to setting one up on my web space to tinker around with. I've made a few edits on Wikipedia whenever I discovered an error to egregious to let slide, but for the most part I've been primarily a consumer rather than a creator when it comes to the Wiki platform.
Blogging is something I'm more familiar with. I've maintained a blog of one sort or another since creating a Livejournal halfway through high school well over a decade past. That makes me feel suddenly old to realize that my first tentative steps into web development in high school were all at least ten years ago. A blogging platform is something more familiar to me than a Wiki simply because it's something that I've worked with more directly over the years. I'll be interested in seeing how far the blogger platform can be stretched compared to other open source services that are available for installation on your own web server. The comparison should be fascinating.
I, too, like the idea of the wiki. The library I work at at Purdue is thinking about developing a wiki to host all of the handouts we give to students to help them utilize the library and our collections. With budget cuts and high cost of printing, having a wiki as a "one-stop-shop" for information would be a great way to provide additional customer service.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that I will learn a lot about developing and maintaining wikis in this class. I am hoping I can use that knowledge as leverage and help develop the wiki at my library.