Exercise 16: Wikis

I think the idea of the wiki is wonderful but I worry about it considerably in practice. As an instructor, I hate to see my students reference wikipedia in any way. However, I know many people who start their research questioning in wikipedia. On occassion I have looked at the content there, but it still bothers me just a bit that anyone can change the content. Then it hit the news that someone had indicated a new person was implicated in the assassination of John Kennedy...which was false of course and mean spirited, but who would know? As I looked through the information provided in 23 Things, I found the following in an article by Brian Lamb and thought it was a very humorous was to describe my feelings:

Please, grant me the serenity to accept the pages I cannot edit,
The courage to edit the pages I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference
—The Wiki Prayer

But still, I am afraid that many people won't have that level of wisdom. Now on to how these could be used in libraries - I think there are some wonderful possibilities for internal use - best practices for work flow, information updates, new books and reviews...I do think this one will take more convincing with staff members who are a little worried about the technology.
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