LIS 757

Macleod University Library - History Resources Wiki

The site can be found at http://lis757barb.pbwiki.com

Introduction:

Throughout the course, I have been somewhat cynical of how wikis may be used in a public way by a library, though I could see their merits as a collaborative tool used behind the scenes. So for my final project I decided to put my own cynicism to the test (my mum would be so proud).  I chose to create a subject guide for history students due to my background in history and my interest in academic libraries. So once again, the industrious librarians at Macleod University Library got busy implementing another project...

Why PBwiki?

After looking at a number of different wiki platforms, I settled on PBwiki for a number of reasons: you can create wikis designated for educational use, which means NO ADVERTISING, even in the free version. It is relatively easy to use, which will hopefully encourage users to edit the site.  I like the aesthetics of PBwiki, and the wiki can also be password protected as I am still hesitant to provide unfettered access to editing the site, though all those who do edit must be logged in, so you at least know who is editing the wiki.  The search function also provides nice accessibility for finding information on the site, without clicking through all the pages.

As with most of these tools there are some drawbacks as well.  The cost of upgrading PBwiki can be fairly expensive (ranging from $99.50/year to $999.50/year), and it is the $999.50 plan to get your own domain name.  With the premium version you can upload your own logo (albeit a tiny one) which is a feature I like, but once you do the name of the wiki disappears.  This could be a bug of the beta version of 2.0 – hopefully they would fix this problem, but nevertheless it is still annoying.

I think I actually had access to more features than the free version normally provides because I got an e-mail from PBwiki asking me to beta test this new version.  Otherwise I wouldn’t get logo or custom colours.

If Macleod University Library were an actual academic library that has access to technical support, I would also consider using MediaWiki.  It is an interface that most people will recognize (it’s used by Wikipedia), however from what I can tell you need to download and install the software to use it – something that I think is beyond my capabilities right now.  I also looked at wetpaint, which I have used in the past, but I do not think it is an appropriate wiki for this project.  I found it a bit confusing to use and I do not really like how it looks.

The Wiki Itself:

With this site I wanted to create a place to bring together a number of the history resources available to students at Macleod University Library.  I would basically like this wiki to be an online annotated bibliography of history resources.  Library staff, professors and graduate students will have permission to edit the wiki.  This way there is collaboration and the choice of a wiki makes sense for this project, but it also provides some level of protection for the wiki.  In this case, I am not as worried about vandalism on the site so much, but more to ensure that anything added to the site is indeed an appropriate scholarly/academic resource.

I had a difficult time trying to decide how to organize the blog, since there is overlap in topics, but since most history programs categorize courses by geographic region, this seemed to be the best way to go.  I started with the continents as my main pages and subdivided by country and by “historic episode” within each country.  Since a lot of major historical events (ie. the World Wars) involve multiple countries these pages are linked to from the different countries and then list country-specific resources as well as general resources.  At this point topics such as cultural history, women’s history, etc. would be placed on the country page to keep the wiki a little less cluttered, but that could change in the future, if there were a lot of resources.

Since the logo causes the name of the wiki to disappear, I created a “logo” using the Macleod Clan tartan and the name of the wiki, (as I mentioned before, I would like to see the capability of adding a logo without the name disappearing) and then chose a custom colour palette that matched the logo. (I would expect that a university would have some sort of template/branding/colour scheme required for use).  One more note about the colour – on my laptop at home, the main colour is a nice mustard yellow, where on the computers at school, it looks pea-green, so if it looks green, know that was not the intent. 

What I was able to do:

I wanted to focus on creating the scope I imagined for the site, rather than worrying about content.  Since history is such an expansive subject, I was not able to populate every page with sources.  I began to add content to the mostly to the North American, Canadian, American sections (but also British, General, World and some others) to give a sense of how the site will look when populated with content. *Some pages are still blank* I tried to take into account how history crosses geographic boundaries and time.  The initial content came from a variety of places, the UWO Libraries website, sources I was already aware of (and have used), and a list of resources for historians I was given by a professor while doing my MA in History.

What I would do to enhance the site in the future:

Obviously, the first thing I would like to do is add more content.  Although because it is a wiki, others will hopefully join in with that work.  I would also like to figure out how to make the sidebar navigation expandable/collapsible so that people could more easily access some pages directly. I would also like to think of more countries or historic episodes to add, but still keep the site easily to get around and not too unwieldy (which is another concern).  I think the most important thing that I’ve learned is to keep the site well organized and streamlined.  I think you also need to know when to stop.  There is no way to put everything onto a site like this, so you have to recognize what is important to include and what can be left out.