Wiki Stuff

As a former teacher, I frequently warned students away from wikipedia as a valid source for learning. Knowing that encyclopedias often searched for true experts in specific fields to write articles for their massive volumes, I wondered just who would be editing the wikipedia information. I knew of several people that went in and changed things all the time on wikipedia just because they could...kind of like a prank.
So I had some preconceived notions about wiki pages. But I was interested in the Library Success site and found links to several things that I spent time reading. I can see this as a great way for librarians to input information on a variety of topics. The subject of assigning call numbers to books was fascinating to me because this has always been a challenge for me. I want to place books where people will look for them (and my helpers will find them!) and not necessarily where they "belong". So I did come across some interesting viewpoints on that.
I also was impressed by the use of the Rapid City wiki in finding people to contribute information about their local disaster, the flood of 1972. What a great way to pool information and pictures! I can see that they used so much of what we have learned in our 2.0 course this summer! (flickr, tags, etc.)
I can see how the SDLA conference material is presented in a clear manner for all who are interested in the conference, but I know I would be frustrated if I had spent time writing up the information for the program descriptions and then some idiot got in there and deleted part of it as an edit. Just a thought!
I don't quite know how we could use this in our library, but I can see how it might be useful for a small group planning an event. Our church is working on a huge auction and something like this might be very helpful for getting groups to work on different aspects of the project. But many of our members are not handy with computers or even have one. We wanted to design a church web page to avoid printing out a newsletter every month and mailing it out and the members voted this down because most of them said that they wouldn't look at it because they didn't use a computer that often....