I believe so few libraries allow users to add to their collaborative wikis because of the extra effort that must inevitably go into screenng the additions and changes to ensure no abuse or misinformation has made its way onto the wiki (or any other user-generated content sites). Wikipedia has a system in place to trace accountability in the factual-ness of added content, and perhaps libraries wouldn't need to put so much effort into that aspect of it as much as making sure the wiki is being used for the purpose for which it was intended. Spam easily finds its way onto those kinds of group sites. Since libraries are representative of the entire community, they must make sure no inappropriate content is in place to keep themselves trustworthy in the eyes of the guardians of the community good.
If a library is already struggling to staff according to a growing workload and a shrinking budget, I believe one of the last things they should be spending time doing is monitoring a library wiki--and if a library has a wiki, they certainly ought to monitor it. It's all a matter of priorities, and I personally don't see a wiki as a priority.
I was trying to think of something pithy to say, but mostly I just agree with what you have had to say and don't have much more to add. The libraries do have to decide where they are going to allocate their time and spending hours plodding through wiki commentary to make sure nothing untoward gets published is not an effective use of a librarians time.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they could get someone to develop software that would work like wikipedia, eliminating anything unwanted or unwarranted on the site. But that would be a major programming feature. And even then it might take some site monitoring. I suppose it is something where you could train volunteers to do the job, giving them parameters about what to monitor and what should be removed. But to place the marketing of the library in the hands of a volunteer... I just cannot imagine a library ever doing that. (Then again, my library is talking about having volunteer library concierges... so who knows?)