Thing 16: Wikis

Having mostly only been exposed to Wikipedia as an example of a Wiki before this assignment, it was interesting to see how many wikis there are out there and all the different uses to which they're being put.  Even though I am as guilty of falling back on Wikipedia as anyone else for my personal research, I still bristle at the concept of wikis for trying to find information that needs to be accurate.  I got my MLS in 1997, when the internet was still relatively unformed and we studied print reference sources in class and took the issue of their accuracy and authoritativeness quite seriously.  It's hard to even begin to explain these concepts to today's wired teens. 

So, of the wikis that I looked at, I thought that Princeton Public Library's Books Lovers one http://booklovers.pbworks.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library was a good use for the wiki format and that it was well done.  Book reviews and other sorts of discussion-oriented topics seem like a good use for wikis.  For subject matter that needs to be authoratative though, I am still mistrustful that wikis are the way to go.  Perhaps there are limited-access, moderated, or peer-reviewed wikis out there too?  A wiki produced only by subject experts within a field would be a different story from what I've seen so far.  I thought that the Library Success wiki about wikis http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=What_is_a_Wiki presented a very helpful overview of the topic.