SLA WIKIS FOR OPLS

1. SOLO Librarians Division, http://wiki.sla.org/display/SLADSOL/Welcome
It is new and there isn’t much there yet. Of course YOU can change that by adding content: resources that you think other solos would like to know about, for instance.
2. SLA Toronto Chapter Solos, http://wiki.sla.org/display/Toronto/Solo+Librarians
definitions, backgrounders (links to articles), links to other sites, survey results, and other resources. VERY useful!
3. Other SLA wikis can be found at http://wiki.sla.org/dashboard.action You will have to register, but it’s free. Subjects: 2009 Conference, 23 Things (Web 2.0), divisions and chapters, SLA Centennial, competencies, information ethics, new info pros, leadership, unconference (sharing ideas, events), wikis 101 and wiki sandbox (try wikis for yourself).

AALL WIKI: TOOLS FOR SUCCESS IN TODAY’S ECONOMY

The American Association of Law Libraries unveiled its new Wiki of “resources to succeed in today’s economy.” Articles are divided into 4 categories. Career tools includes article on combating burnout, continuing professional education, job seekers, leadership training, networking and salary negotiation. Financial tools cover budgeting, general financial tools, funding, negotiation, and open access. Management tools include conflict resolution, customer service, hiring and recruiting law librarians, law firm library management, general management tools and managing, and promoting the law library. Finally, there is a section of public relations tools. Most so far are from Julia O’Donnell, AALL Director of Publications, but you can join the wiki and contributed items yourself.

URL: http://aallnet.pbwiki.com

CANADIAN CONSUMER HEALTH INFORMATION WIKI

The Toronto Public Library Consumer Health Information Service has put together a wiki “to help you find reliable, understandable health information for you and your family.” The site includes information on locating reliable health information, links to various resources, a browsable list of over 500 current information files held by the library, several health FAQs, and toll-free number for various Ontario health services and organizations. Some of the site is also available in French. Looks to be pretty useful.

URL: http://chis.wikidot.com/

SCHOOL LIBRARY WIKI

WebTools4u2use is a new wiki for school library media specialists. It was created by two Ph.Ds from the University of Central Florida, Tampa. “Much of the information is the result of a survey conducted in 2008 of over 600 school library media specialists about their knowledge and use of Web-based tools….” There are sections on audio and podcasting, blogs, calendars and to-do lists, drawing/charting/mapping tools, photo tools, portals and Web pages, presentation, quiz and polling, RSS feeds and aggregators, social bookmarking, social networking, video and video sharing, wikis, word processing, and more. It looks like could be a useful resource.

URL: http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/

a WONDERFUL MEDICAL WIKI !!

I just discovered WikiDoc. It is a wiki run by and for medical professionals--and patients. As usual, I searched for my 2 major health issues (peripheral neuropathy and spinal stenosis). I found very good and accurate information on both, mostly understandable to the reasonably medicalese-fluent layperson. But the best feature was the link to other websites. I clicked on to excellent resources on both conditions--that I had never seen before. One was even peer-reviewed.

You can search or look at content by disease, differential diagnosis, signs and symptoms, lab tests, and drug. There is also the WikiDoc Medical School Curriculum, which has very complete lessons on everything from anatomy to public health. The home page has news stories and links to the WikiDoc Community ("It's the FaceBook/MySpace of Healthcare" where you can share video, images, blogs, and participate in forums. Another neat feature is "What Was My Doctor Talking About?" where you can watch "world experts explain procedures and treatments in language that you can understand." You can even put WikiDoc on your iPod. "There is no industry support for this site."

The site is available in English, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Japanese and Turkish. It is the brainchild of Jacki Buros and C. Michael Gibson MD, but anyone can edit pages. If they approve you, you can become the editor of a page. As of today, there were 64,817 textbook chapters and news articles and far more pages.

I highly recommend this site.

URL: http://www.wikidoc.org/

SECOND LIFE HEALTH INFORMATION

The following links go to various sources in Second Life or organizations active in SL.

SLHealthy Wiki, http://slhealthy.wetpaint.com/page/More+Web+Resources+of+SL+Health+Information?t=anon
HealthInfo Island Blog, http://healthinfoisland.blogspot.com
Second Life: Lists, http://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/healthcare

WIKIS FOR HEALTH LIBRARIANS

David Rothman notes the article by Eugene Barsky and Dean Giustini in the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (28(4), 2007), Introducing Web 2.0: Wikis for health librarians, and adds a few of his own. Check out both of them.

URLs:

Rothman’s post: http://davidrothman.net/2008/01/25/introducing-

web-20-wikis-for-health-librarians/

Barsky & Giustini article: http://pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/jchla/jchla28/c07-036.pdf

BOOK SUGGESTIONS WIKI

There is a neat wiki on Metafilter that has suggestions for books from the AskMe HelpDesk (http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/)

What’s there? Non-fiction (science & math; travel; philosophy and religion; history, politics, and sociology; biography; business, economics and investment; life, health and medicine; hobbies, sports and games; food, drink and cooking; technology; design; arts and education), Fiction (crime, mystery and noir; historical; non-English; women; sci-fi and fantasy; for a book club; for kids; by age; as gifts; about a place), Libraries, Bookstores, Books ownership, Questions about specific books or authors, and Other sources of book recommendations.

There is lots of great stuff here.

URL: http://mssv.net/wiki/index.php/ReadMe.

A MOREAUTHORITATIVE ALTERNATIVE TO WIKIPEDIA

Veropedia “is a collaborative effort by a group of Wikipedians to collect the best of Wikipedia’s content, clean it up, vet it, and save it for all time. These articles are stable and cannot be edited.” It is not competing with Wikipedia—they “prefer to think of [themselves] as a meta-layer, highlighting the best that Wikipedia has to offer.” There are two types of links, green (already verified) and blue (not verified, directing you back to Wikipedia). It contains over 4500 articles there now. Very interesting.

URL: http://veropedia.com/

A NEW WIKI FOR PHYSICIANS

WiserWiki “is a wiki that will allow accredited physicians to comment, collaborate and update medical information online and is viewable by everyone. The site was originally seeded with content from John Noble’s Textbook of Primary Care Medicine (3rd Edition). In answer to the question, What is the purpose of this site? the site says, “We hope to provide a trusted forum for physicians to collaborate and contribute professional-level medical content that can be viewable by everyone. WiserWiki is one example of our commitment to explore innovative tools to help medical professionals access the most up-to-date medical information available. As of now, the site is still in ‘Beta mode’ as we test new ways to make it better for you as a user!”

There are ads, but it looks interesting.

URL: http://www.wiserwiki.com/Main_Page

TWO NEW WIKIS FOR LIBRARIANS

For Pharmacy Librarians
PharmLib Wiki is divided into the following categories: hot topics (informatics, law, cultural competence, outreach), collection development, education and training of students, professional development, research, and community (homepages of pharmacy librarians and libraries, subject guides, and related wikis). It is new, so there’s no that much here, but it looks like it will be a great resource. It is the creation of KT Vaughn [University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA].

URL: http://pharmlib.pbwiki.com/

For Multimedia Librarians
Multimedia Librarian is a wiki plus electronic list. Topics are: copyright; digital preservation; digital rights management; digital libraries; film, music and art media preservation; tools for interoperability and delivery of media; professional societies and associations; listservs; multimedia literacy; film industry news; critical reviews of film and music; research centers; professional resources; and blogs. This looks like it could be a very comprehensive portal for digital and media librarians.

URL: http://multimedialibrarian.wikia.com
To subscribe to the list: http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/
listinfo/multimedialibrarian-l

PBWIKI TUTORIALS AVAILABLE

Atomic Learning has posted more than 40 video tutorials by Richard Marchessault which will teach you how to do everything under the sun with PBWiki. Each about 2 minutes long and are free (for now, at least). They are grouped into the following: using wikis in an educational setting, choosing and setting up a wiki, working with PBwiki, using the PBwiki plug-in features, and working with WikiStyle.

URL: http://www.atomiclearning.com/pbwiki

GREAT LAKES WIKI

If you are looking for information about the (US) Great Lakes, a good place to start is this wiki, started by students of environmental journalism, telecommunications, information studies, and media at Michigan State University (Lansing). It “explores new ways of speeding the flow of information, knowledge and news about one of the world’s greatest natural resources. [The five lakes contain over eighteen percent of the world’s fresh surface water.] It relies on the experience and knowledge of a network of citizens, including scientists, hunters, policymakers, environmentalists, anglers, lakeside property owners, boaters, business operators, and others.” Articles are grouped under Culture, Recreation, Geography, Commerce, Ecology, and Areas of Concern.

URL: http://greatlakeswiki.org

WHICH WIKI TO USE?

If you’re contemplating creating a wiki, you are probably confused as to which software program you should use. Never fear, WikiMatrix is here to help. This site, from CosmoCode, a German software company, allows use to make side-by-side, feature-by-feature comparison of the most popular wiki programs. You can also print out all the data for just one or two wikis. Points of comparison include: cost, storage, limits, spam and security features, support, common features, special features, linking, syntax, usability, statistics available, output formats, media and file handling, and examples of formats. It is most impressive—and free. Highly recommended.

URL: http://www.wikimatrix.org

DATABASE OF US STATE DATABASES

The Government Documents Roundtable (American Library Association) is putting together a wiki of state agency databases on business, people, agriculture, and more. This site will attempt to collect links to them in one place. They hope to add search capability at a later date. Only the following states’ sites are active as of today, but this looks to be a great idea. Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming

URL: http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases

UNCONFERENCES, ANYONE?

Betsy McKenzie [Suffolk University Law Library, Boston, Massachusetts, USA] has a great post on Out of the Jungle on unconferences. She refers to the blog, Unconference, by Connie Crosby and a book about them being written by wiki, which is so like an Unconference.

What is an unconference? UCs are put together on short planning schedules, through brainstorming with a group of “influencers and innovators” in the field. They might solve some of the problems we all have with the large association-wide conferences, such as:

Programs are selected so far in advance that new issues aren’t covered. All the sessions you want to go to are at the same time. Unofficial sessions can’t be scheduled at the last minute. Too many panels and “talking heads.”

Connie Crosby [WeirFoulds LLP, Toronto, Ontario, Canada] wrote, “an unconference is more informal, nimble and cheap than any conference I’ve been to. The mantra that drives them is the Rule of Two Feet: Any person not either learning from or contributing to a discussion, should use their two feet to move to another group discussion. The other, huge difference, is that the discussions are much more inclusive -- the audience is part of the presentation. They also help shape the agenda and sign up the day of the conference in a discussion session.”

Unconference: The Book is due to be published this year and is being written collaboratively with the use of a wiki. It started in India, but authors are invited from elsewhere. See the wiki for more information and a table of contents.

URLs:

Betsy’s post: http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2007/06/introducing-

unconferences.html
Crosby’s post: http://www.slaw.ca/2007/06/01/unconference-the-book/

Wiki book: http://www.unconference.info/wiki/index.php?title=Book

FEDERAL LIBRARIES THAT ARE CLOSED OR ENDANGERED

“This public wiki is established as a central place to post information and inquiries about rumored closings and threats to federal libraries.” It is co-hosted by the Washington office of the American Library Association and the Committee on Legislation’s Subcommittee on Federal Libraries. There’s not much there—it should only stay that way!

URL: http://wikis.ala.org/fedlib/

SITE FOR CIRCULATION FOLKS

Circulation Services is a site “to foster communication and community among Circulation and Access Services professionals. Far too often, the work performed by circulation staff is minimized by the Library community, especially the professional community.” The site is new and there isn’t much there, but it’s a great idea. It doesn’t say it, but it is a wiki. (No sign of who started it.)

URL: http://circservices.wikidot.com/start

LIST OF LIBRARY-RELATED WEBSITES

libSite.org describes itself as “a recommendation for library-related websites.” It comes from Leo Kline, a Chicago librarian. It “features a blog, a wiki, RSS feeds and email alerts…users can rate sites and add them to a ‘favorites’ page.” It will work only if people contribute to it, of course.

But do we really need another website/wiki for library sites? There are so many I can’t keep track of them all, and I certainly can’t contribute items to all of them. I wish we could all cooperate and have just one or two of these community sites—but I guess that’s wishful thinking, so check this one out.

URL: http://libsite.org/

ANNOUNCING A “SOCIAL EXPERIMENT”

Ivan Chew announces the Singapore Social Media Directory (really, a wiki) to make it easy to find blogs by people or groups in Singapore. There are two main sections: listings by individual and by groups. Entries are listed in alphabetical order. There is also provision for up to twenty phrases or keywords—to facilitate searching by subject. Of course, the directory is searchable.

Chew calls this a “Social Experiment” because the wiki will be opened for anyone to edit. You don’t eve need to be a registered member. He adds, “It’s worth trying out the idea. The cost of failure isn’t that high. The world won’t end if this experiment crashes and burns. No one will die of embarrassment if nobody responds to this. So let the Social Experiment begin!”

URLs:
Announcement: http://ramblinglibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/03/
experiment-announcing-singapore-social.html
Wiki: http://sgsocialmediadir.wikispaces.com/