My previous experience with wikis had been through Wikipedia and I hadn't really imagined all of the possible applications for them. My favorite feature of wikis is their collaborative nature. Allowing a particular community to work collectively on projects of common interest, and often doing so effectively, demonstrates that hierarchical, top-down direction is not always required to achieve results.
I thought that the St. Joseph's County Library subject guide was a particularly fruitful use of a wiki. This points people to a number of resources on hobbies, genealogy, links for areas of local interest and genre reads to name just a few. I think wikis could be used like this within any library system to cultivate good resourceful links. the features of easy editing and decentralized community involvement would make it very easy to keep links current.
The Library Success wiki, is also a really good idea. A place where libraries can share a variety of success stories and strategies for everything from programming, marketing, readers advisory, management and more. This can be a powerful tool in allowing libraries of all sizes to share their experiences of what works and what doesn't for a variety of
I also think wikis are a good idea for policy/procedure manuals. Easy to update on the fly and no need to print out new sections for every employee's personal manual. This offers built in redundancy for any organization. For example, if "X" employee who normally handles a particular aspect of business is out sick, that information can be easily looked up on a wiki and things can run just as they normally would.
Lastly, a personal favorite to pass along to my fellow Star Wars nerds, Wookieepedia.
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