Wiki Wiki Wiki

I have never thought or heard about a library having a wiki page, but I guess that is what this class is all about.  Learning new Web 2.0 technologies and how we can apply them to libraries.  That being said, I am going to use my college library as my field site for this wiki assignment.

East Georgia State College is an access institution with strong ties to the community.  We are a four-year state college, although most of our programs are two-year degrees.  The library serves a student population of approximately 2,800 students, traditional and non-traditional, as well as community members.  Our budget for the year is under $80,000 for everything from database subscriptions to supplies, so there is no such thing as money to spare.  The library is also staffed by four full time employees and a few student workers during the semester so job duties are generally shared among employees.  All of this means that the goal of the library wiki will be to make the jobs of the employees easier and not more difficult.  The wiki page will be a one-stop shop for information that is commonly requested by students and college employees.  There are many pieces of information that are spread over the college website that can benefit from being in one central location.  The wiki can also host information about little known about library services that are available on campus; like course reserves or GILFind.

I selected the following requirements for my library wiki using the Wiki Choice Wizard. 

1) A page history so that older versions are saved and a record of editors is kept.

2) What you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) because it is easier for non-tech savvy users, so everyone has a fair chance at creating and updating content.

3)  Software that is hosted by another party because we do not have the server space for it, as well as unlimited bandwidth and storage space.

4) Our own unique domain name and the ability to incorporate college branding into the page so that 

it looks similar to other college pages.

5) Options to include a calendar, image gallery, forum, and blogs as deemed necessary.

… All of these factors lead me to choose PBwiki.