Using a Wiki to Publish a Research Guide

Librarian Elisa Mason, who has worked at the UN High Commission for Refugees and the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford, created the Forced Migration Guide back in 2008 using wiki software.

In an article from Library Hi Tech News that was reprinted on the E-LIS E-prints in Library and Information Science portal, she explains how she went about selecting a wiki as the best platform.

The article is entitled Using a Wiki to Publish a Research Guide:

"Wiki publishing poses a threefold challenge: First, from the publication perspective, while you may be in control of your content, you are also on your own, with no editor, no marketer, and no designer on hand to assist you. Second, from the technology point of view, you must troubleshoot and devise your own workarounds. Finally, it is an ongoing commitment to maintain a living resource. In the end, though, the positives outweigh any negatives. Using a wiki to publish is an easy and useful way for a non-technical person to present a lot of material to a wide audience fairly quickly. And a librarian can derive tremendous professional satisfaction in being able to offer a resource of his or her own making."