In one of my other (non library) lives I am involved in an organisation that used to have an entry on Wikipedia.
The entry (which a third party wrote) contained some factual inaccuracies which we felt obliged to correct. We then (with the blessing of the original author) continued to update the entry regularly with competition results and the like. (This is sorta, kinda, against the Wikipedia rules which discourage autobiographical entries)
However someone took umbrage with the organisation and edited the information on Wikipedia maliciously.
This led to accusations of vandalism, sock puppetry*, and whatever is the internet version of duelling pistols at thirty paces.
This gave me a somewhat jaundiced view of wikipedia and wikis in general.
I can see how useful they could be in a library but the collaborative, anyone-can-edit aspect concerns me especially where accuracy of information is crucial.
Unfortunately what is attractive about wikis (their openness to all, minimal moderation, anyone can contribute to them) can also be what is most dangerous about them, and most open to abuse.
Nonetheless I think a wiki could be extremely useful (and valuable) for a public library - as a form of interaction between the library and the readers, (eg: book reviews, recommendations, suggestions) and the library and the wider world (information sharing, local knowledge etc.)
* Sock puppetry - an explanation. On Wikipedia sock puppeteers are contributors who have multiple logins/ids (and use their multiple ids for evil instead of good). Wikipedia have a 'one vote, one person' ideal but some people have multiple logins so that they can basically vote/comment more than once on a issue in which they have an interest.
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