During Internet Librarian 2007, I attended the session: DIY INTERNET: KnowledgeBase for the People by the People. Speakers: Eleni Gogas, Digital Services Librarian, and Donna Feddern, Senior Librarian, Media and Teen Services, Escondido Public Library, California share how this public library thought outside the box – finding a way to create an intranet when money, IT staff, and staff technical knowledge were limited commodities by setting up an intranet using a wiki. You can look at the slides for the program here.
Elani Gogas described the first phase as the pre-wiki stage during which they considered the drivers for an intranet. For them it included: network drive issues, addressing their efforts to get organized and stay current, improving KM, and working around an overly formal city intranet that was not a good fit for their library-specific information.
The whys of choosing a wiki for their intranet included the ability for informal, transparent collaboration and the ease of finding and using information. Combined with this was the ability of the staff – without high levels of technical background - to participate in building the wiki, lifting the responsibilities of having to maintain two websites from the shoulders of the web manager. Furthermore, they faced two not-uncommon problems: they did not have any access to their server because the IT department controlled it and they did not have programmers on the library staff.
The considerations that resonated with them as they began to consider wiki platforms spanned: cost (free or at least affordable), ease of set up and learning curve, intuitiveness of the interface (WYSWYG), whether or not it was web-based (wiki farm), the need for it to be password protected, and the ability to include a blog component and individual staff profiles. The library chose Jotspot. It aligned with their criteria and they liked the keyword searching, RSS, and email reminders. However, they are concerned about its fate after Jotspot’s acquisition by Google. They are backing up on a network drive just in case. There is also a Jotspot Help Group available.
THOUGHTS ON TRAINING AND IMPLEMENTATION
- Build FAQs and tutorials
- Provide go-to-people within the workplace for troubleshooting
- Develop guidelines instead of set-in-stone rules
- Recognize that training for staff will be ongoing
- Understand that fear of change can be expected at some level
- Assume that driving staff interest/participation will be a given.
Donna Feddern discussed the wiki as a valuable management/staff communication tool because of its less hierarchical nature. They believe it is useful in managing change and helps them avoid the perils of the network drive for storing their information. The wiki, together with a blog component, allows the staff to exploit their creativity. It also provides a kind of immediacy that is valuable to the library staff at many levels. For instance, during the recent fires in California, it was a place for staff to post updates about the welfare of their work colleagues.
