I have long been a great believer in, and user of, wikipedia. I use it all the time in supporting political arguments on some of the blogs I visit for that purpose. It occasionally happens that somebody to whom you've applied an argumentative wiki-kicky in the teeth will say that wikipedia citations can't be trusted. And that's true; it isn't 100% reliable. But one can always check the annotations.
In looking over several of the library applications of the use of wikis, it becomes immediately obvious what a powerful tool it can be. As a person who has had to organize travel plans for several individuals in a department, the conference travel organizing possibilities are very attactive.
As a person who has often gone to amazon.com to read customer reviews of a book, the title of which I've found on Alice, to see if I really want to read it, or look for something else instead, I can attest as a client and customer, that such a wiki would be a great asset to any library.
While I'm not a researcher at this time, subject indexes that can be added to and subtracted from by persons currently involved in researching a given subject would be an obvious, time-saving asset to any library and its clients.
For public libraries, the use of wikis as a community bulletin board is also a great idea.
There is the danger, of course, of misinformation being conveyed to a whole bunch of different people at one time, with all the confusion that could cause. But, all-in-all, wikis seem to be one of the most powerful tools going. And most of us are already using several of them daily, I suspect.
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