week 10

I would like to see all Aussie libraries on Google maps. I haven't had much time yet to explore the Mashups, but have had a look here and intend to return to it when time permits.

week 9

Podcasting really works for me. I just love the convenience of being able to listen so selectively and not worrying about missing out on programs that I want to hear.

Week 8

I use Yahoo answers frequently. I do see a role of 'Slamming the boards' Altho I do not work in the reference section, I have in the past and remember some particularily difficult queries that we just could not find the answer to, no matter how tenacious we were. In those cases I can't think of anything better.

week 7

I am already a complete fan of Library Thing and am rather slowly getting my entire book collection cataloged. Through using LIbrary Thing I have become familiar with tagging and the functionality of it. I also have created a Del.icio.us account and am using that.

Week 6

I loved the Olive Riley videos and can see how useful this using utube for Local Studies and oral history would be in the library

Using wikis in a Local Studies context

I was just wondering if any libraries are using wikis as a way to collect local information. For example, I believe that there are many people and organizations in the local community with lots of valuable local knowledge. Organizations like Historical Societies and Family History groups would be especially important. On the library website,where I work, we have Local Profiles, which is a list of suburbs within our library area, with historical information, like early land grants, industries etc. Included in these profiles are "timelines" which bring us up to the present. Our library has stopped cutting out articles from our local newspapers and filing them in cutting files. These are newspapers which are not indexed on ProQuest and not indexed anywhere. I have an idea that wikis might be used as a point of local knowledge collection. There is some concern about having to check the validity and quality of the information etc, but surely there would be a way to limit the contributers to avoid complete crackpots contributing.

So if any of you have any experience with this, it would be great.

link to delicious

http://del.icio.us/skarpin