Wikiing Star Trek

One of the presentations I attened at the CIL conference today was entitled "Wikis @ Your Library" presented by Will Richardson of www.weblogg-ed.com fame. He began by asking the audience to turn and ask the person sitting next to them what a wiki is. Not surprisingly, mos people were unsure how to respond. He described a wiki as a "tool of the read/write web."

I really like that definition. I don't know if it's original with Will or not, but I think it is accurate. It's definitely a tool that can promote the dissemination of knowledge. One example he gave was how the information on the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 grew and changed over a period of a very short time. Now it's an extremely comprehensive site with links to online news reports about the disaster.

What's Trek got to do with this? One of the sites he showed was the Memory Alpha Wiki. A truly great site for Trek fans.

Now if some of these librarians would just get over their fear of genealogists.

Live long and prosper.

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