NMRLS Newsletter - February 2007

Web 2.0 Library Spotlight:
OWH Library Creates Wiki in support of Ship Model Exhibit
By Elisabeth Tully, OWHL Director and Sara Ciaburri, Instructional Librarian

Models as Muse, the new exhibit at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy which opened on January 27th, features the museum's extraordinary collection of twenty-four models of ships which sailed between 1600 and the

beginning of the 20th century. In this exhibition the models serve as both the exhibition's central objects and as the muse for unique projects created by guest artists and by faculty members at Phillips Academy.

The Oliver Wendell Holmes Library has contributed to the exhibition by creating a unique resource containing information on the history of the featured ships, biographical information on their builders and captains, and the historical context in which the ships sailed. Each of the seven Instructional Librarians on the OWHL staff participated by creating individual electronic pathfinders for three or four of the ships. We have collected each ship's architectural specifications,

voyages, captains, battles fought, etc. We have also compiled a bibliography of monographs, subscription database journal articles and free web resources related to each ship that link out directly to corresponding catalog records and internet URLs.

In addition to supporting the Addison's exhibit, we identified two goals for our participation in the project. First, we wanted it to be a professional development opportunity for the staff. We believe that periodically working through the research process is an important way for us to hone the skills that we use each day on the help desk. As we have conducted our research, a friendly competition has developed regarding the identification of appropriate print and electronic resources, including images, and multi-media files.

Our second goal was to learn the capabilities of wiki software by using it in the creation of this resource. We selected wikispaces, a provider of web-based wikis, as our host. Wikispaces is a feature-rich wiki which is very easy to use. It is currently offering free, private ad-free accounts to K-12 educators. The wiki software proved to be useful in many ways. In our research, we often found information on one ship that overlapped with the history of other ships in the collection. For example, there are several clipper ships in the collection and two Hudson River sloops. Using the wiki allowed us to link between articles and easily edit what others have written.