Wikis in Libraries

This has been one of the most interesting things for me to explore. I'm a fan of Wikipedia already because if you're just looking for some quick information on something and don't necessarily need it to be collegiate-level accurate, Wikipedia's got everything. Surprisingly, the information usually seems to be pretty accurate, despite the fact that anyone on the web can add content. And sometimes, it's handy to use Wikipedia as a springboard to find search terms you can use in more reputable databases.

To be honest, I never knew that a wiki was something independent of Wikipedia. I'd never even heard of a wiki outside of that website. I think that it's a really unique tool, and I'm not sure I've quite organized my thoughts on all the things it can do yet, so bear with me as I talk it out.

At first, it seemed like, to me, that if everyone could just log in and change things, it might as well be a bulletin board, but then I realized that bulletin boards aren't organized to be easily searchable, so that's not really an apt comparison. So it's a website, and that's handy, because the more content you have, the better the site, and opening it up for multiple people to contribute (who might not necessarily do so otherwise due to computer illiteracy) is really handy. Being a part of a team that is attempting to create a library website and worrying frequently about how we will generate content to keep it going, I can see the obvious benefits to having many, many contributors.

However, I can't help but think that, in terms of a library wiki, the content would need to be monitored a bit more carefully than any old wiki out there in cyberspace. Obviously, this could be handled by only allowing the wiki to be edited by librarians, but then you're not allowing your patrons to have much of an involvement in the project. I love how Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki incorporates reviews from their patrons, but I have to wonder how they monitor their content. Surely, someone must be watching out for cursing, inappropriate commentary, spamming, harassment, etc? And if that's the case, and someone is spending a lot of time making sure propriety is maintained, then wouldn't it be just time-consuming as monitoring a message board or screening every post that goes through?

I don't know. I love the idea of wikis to which patrons can contribute, but I don't understand how it can be done and content-screened without creating a lot of extra work. The whole idea of allowing a bunch of people to contribute is to SAVE yourself time, so policing the site seems like it's a bit counter-intuitive to the point. Overall, though, I think I'm of the opinion that wikis rock.