Reference Desk Wiki

One of the projects underway at the UHD Library is development of an internal "wiki" as the source of information and practices for use when staffing the library's reference desk. The idea, of course, is to create a central location for the information that librarians may need when assisting patrons. The library currently has a binder for such material, but migrating its content to a wiki provides a number of benefits -- searchability, ease of maintainance and updating, multiple authors, content control, as well as the possibility of storing conversations and discussions about the content.

The wiki is expected to be hosted externally. My colleagues have pointed out several cool resources such as SquareSpace (a web hosting company with a beautiful design aesthetic and tools), and WikiMatrix.org (great site for comparing wiki hosting offerings across many vendors). However, it's looking like the free 'community web space' hosting site, Wetpaint, may best meet the project requirements. I've recommended that we try a pilot project or prototype using Wetpaint so we can learn more about what we like or don't like, need or don't need, for the wiki.