I checked out a couple of the wikis listed on the learning 2.0 website. I was generally impressed with the SJCPL wiki, especially the format they used. To start I clicked on biography and memoir, the page then displays definitions of various types of biographies followed by a listing of new biographies at the library, staff recommend biographies and best selling biographies. Pictures of the book cover are shown just like one would expect to see on amazon or barnes and noble's website and clicking on those pictures links you to the library catalog. On the downside the page has been updated since feb of last year, so the new books aren't exactly new anymore.... I then tried browsing by categories, hobbies and then travel. Travel had a similar lay-out w/ the books, but it also included an "in the news" link to a travel to Torino in 2006 website, once again very out of date. The travel section also included lists of travel magazines, links to travel websites, dewy numbers and info on language learning help. The other wiki i visited was iread the Iowa reader's advisory wiki. One probably I noticed was they had lots of categories to browse (e.g. children's -> Historical Fiction) w/ nothing, or very options recommended. The adult and teen genres seemed to have more options, but I was never overly impressed by the quantity of books recommended. One thing I did like is the convenient links the site had to add a delicious bookmark or RSS. The problem i noticed is that for wikis to be success for they need frequent contribution and updates. Wikis generally useful proportionate to the number of contributors they have. Wikipedia is so successful because it has millions of contributors worldwide. The wikis I looked at today are limited in what they can do, because they have a much smaller group of contributors. While wikipedia is used by internet users around the world, I doubt that the SJCPL wiki attracts many contributors outside of St Jospeh's County library users who also use the internet.
