Week 5

Well what can I say about Wikis? I’ve completed the week with a couple of omissions I should own up to. The system was far too slow to take the pbwiki tour and I have not contributed anything to the nswlearning 2 wiki, but I did explore the site and wondered where all the cataloguers were.
The SJCPL subject guides – what can I say “in an ideal world” – where would we ever find the time and resources to maintain such an excellent wiki. Mint Museum – much more manageable. The full library success: a best practice wiki – I liked this one although not its Wikipedia format. Have added an RSS feed to my blog (just like that! At the beginning of Week 1 just that statement would have been gibberish to me)

The library environment could certainly benefit from the expert and controlled use of Wikis, but there is so much unreviewed and uncontrolled stuff out there that is not subject to ethical restraints. I recently read Andrew Keen’s book The cult of the amateur : how today's internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy. He describes the rise of the “Citizen journalist” offering up opinions as fact, rumour as reportage and innuendo as information. He also describes blogs as the greatest outburst of mass exhibitionism in human history and here at the end of Week 5 as fascinating as it all is I am no less inclined to agree with him.
Satisfaction rating: Can’t think of a number this week – it was OK