Blue 2.0: Wikis

Since September 2007, I have been part of the a Kentucky Academic Libraries task force which has used a wiki for its work. That wiki can be found at http://fokal.pbwiki.com/. The Task Force resulted from a summit this summer of all the academic library directors in Kentucky (both public and private). The Task Force has proposed the formation of a federation called FoKAL: Federation of Kentucky Academic Libraries. On the wiki you can find some background information. If you click on Recommendations in Development, you will find the final proposal of the task force which is currently being voted on by the 4 groups -- SAALCK, AIKCU, KCTCS and the non-affliated group. SAALCK (of which UK is a member) has already approved the recommendations. The deadline for each group to report is February 15th. If approved, the task force will meet next on February 25th to begin the official process of forming the federation.

This was a really outstanding use of a wiki in my opinion. Of course, we used it to revise our work between meetings. But, also when we met, we had a PC available and projected the wiki on the screen. Then as we met, we would revise and edit during the meeting. As a result, our work went very quickly and did not seem onerous.

I think wikis have excellent potential for committees, working groups, departments and divisions who need to work together to create plans, documents, etc.