Welcome to LibraryWikis!

LibraryWikis is a wiki about wikis used in libraries.  It is intended for the library community as a place to share and learn about wikis in libraries.  The wiki is a companion to a forthcoming research article to be published within the September 2007 issue of Information Technology and Libraries.  The author of the wiki is Matthew Bejune, Assistant Professor of Library Science, Purdue University Libraries, and Doctoral student at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  He can be reached at mbejune@purdue.edu.

About the Article

Citation: Bejune, Matthew M. (2007). Wikis in Libraries. Information Technology and Libraries, 26(3), 27-39.

Wikis have recently been adopted to support a variety of collaborative activities within libraries. The article and the companion wiki, LibraryWikis (), seeks to document the phenomenon of wikis in libraries. This subject is considered within the framework of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). The author identified thirty-three library wikis and developed a classification schema with four categories:

1. Collaboration between Libraries (45.7 percent);

2. Collaboration between Library staff (31.4 percent);

3. Collaboration between Library Staff and Patrons (14.3 percent);

4. Collaboration between Patrons (8.6 percent).

Examples of library wikis are presented within the article, as is a discussion for why wikis are primarily utilized within categories I and II and not within categories III and IV. It is clear that wikis have great utility within libraries, and the author urges further application of wikis in libraries.

Categorization of wikis

Wikis are categorized in four groupings.  Examples of each category can be found by following the four links.

1. Collaboration between Libraries
2. Collaboration between Library Staff
3. Collaboration between Library Staff and Patrons
4. Collaboration between Patrons

Wiki Links

A list of articles and links to resources about wikis can be found here: Wiki Links