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Working with Wiki: How We Collaborate and Share Documents at the National Library

A page from the National Library’s wiki

A long time ago, in about September 2006, we struggled to keep track of our documents: we could all access those in the j:drive; some of us could access those in the g:drive, only a few of us could access those in the h:drive, and inevitably there would be some lost in the p:drive. Not only was it difficult to find documents, but once you found them, they were locked for use by someone else.

We solved some of our problems with a wiki. What is a wiki? According to Wikipedia, ‘A wiki is software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily’, and ‘Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites.’

We originally set up a wiki to manage a particular collaborative website. The wiki grew rapidly as users discovered how easy it is to use a wiki. Now our enterprise wiki is made up of many little wiki ‘spaces’, a combination of project, branch, group and divisional wikis. The wiki has grown so much in popularity that by early 2008 we had more than 80 wiki spaces.

We use the wiki for a variety of things: writing, editing and drafting collaborative documents; creating and keeping rosters; sharing information; thinking about, planning and discussing projects, showing off our achievements in many different ways.

The wiki environment is very open and collaborative: those users who have a way with words are able to correct those of us who leave off commas and full stops; we can review what’s gone before as each version of a wiki page is stored; we can see, read and comment upon any page within any wiki space—you’d be amazed at how much you learn by reading outside your own area of interest—and we can search across the entire wiki for any person, phrase or document.

Wiki has not replaced our network drives, intranet or public website: we still publish policy and other documents where they can be accessed by a broader audience. But for ease of use, collaborative writing and discourse, you’d go a long way to beat our wiki.

Bobby Graham
Web Content Manager, Web Publishing