More catch-up! Week 7: Wikis. I thought this was one of the more interesting units we’ve covered thus far. To be honest, I’ve always been a bit dubious about wikis; this despite the fact that I regularly use Wikipedia (thus outing myself as a bit of hypocrite!). The primary and obvious reason that I’m dubious is that old saying about one rotten apple spoiling a bunch: It only takes one or two cases of blatant cyber-vandalism to make you question the verity of everything included on a wiki site (any site, really, but the collaborative aspect of wikis obviously makes them especially susceptible to the more malevolent or mischievous people out there). That being said, having started – though not completing as of yet; sorry – the wiki activities, I can see that they could be a really effective way of people working together, because they make everything so quick: People from one organisation dotted all around the world can collaborate in near-real time. I think I’ve been persuaded, and will look forward to using wikis more in a workplace environment in the future. As for Week 8 (‘Mobile Technologies’), I know mobile technologies are obviously going to be the thing for the future (it’s about time to get my circa 1998 phone replaced, I think!), but I was just wondering if anyone out there actually thinks they’ll be of use to library services? I’m slightly sceptical.
