Wikid! - are wikis the foundation of a new digital empire?

No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

John Donne wrote this back in the seventeenth century (1624 to be exact!), but if he were transposed four hundred years into the present, he might well have been writing about the concept of wikis.

WIKI - (W)hat (I) (K)now (I)s

A wiki is a collaborative website - a site in which anyone (or sometimes just a selected group of people) - can post, modify, edit, and share information. It draws on the experience and expertise of contributors who can be scattered across the globe but can add their portion at the click of a mouse. You don't need to know HTML or have any programming skills to be part of it! Usually there is a moderator at the helm to ensure the content is reliable and accurate. But the main feature of wiki development and use is that the site relies on the community to participate in an ongoing process of development - it's a real team effort! One of the most well known wikis is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), a FREE online encyclopedia composed entirely of pages contributed by users.

There are lots of ways in which libraries can benefit from the use of wikis. Book clubs can communicate and comment on the books they read - members can review books (anonymously if they like!) and arrange meetings and social occasions.