Happy Holidays everyone! To kick off the season we assembled some lists of wiki-related books to make any Scrooge get in the spirit of collaboration. Today, we’ll look at general wiki books, tomorrow books on the ever popular Wikipedia and it’s MediaWiki platform, and on Sunday we’ll talk about books that aren’t Wiki-specific but are general primers on using wikis and other social networking tools for mass collaboration.
Top Picks
• Wikipatterns: A Practical Guide to Improving Productivity and Collaboration in Your Organization by Stewart Mader (Wiley, John & Sons 2007, 167 pages, $29.99) – Probably the premier book on wiki thought, Stewart Mader – a former wiki evangelist for Atlassian software – is now a full-time wiki consultant. Wikipatterns is “a practical guide to improving productivity and collaboration in organizations.” The book provides a toolbox of various wiki patterns with practical advice on encouraging wiki adoption as a collaborative tool or online community. Mader presents concrete examples of techniques that work as well as common pitfalls enabling newcomers to avoid making common mistakes.
• The Wiki Way: Collaboration and Sharing on the Internet with CDROM by Bo Leuf and Ward Cunningham (Addison-Wesley Professional 2001, 464 pages, $67.25) – Co-written by wiki creator (and AboutUs CTO) Ward Cunningham, The Wiki Way is one of the earlierst WIki books. Packed with information on how to set up, customize and run a Wiki server, as well as presentation of Wiki theory, practical implementation and examples of Wiki adoption for various scenarios.
Other Wiki Titles
• Professional Wikis by Mark S. Choate (Wrox Press 2008, 300 pages, $39.99) – Technical book designed for programmers, developers, information architects, designers and content authors looking to use wikis to improve team productivity. Contains information on when wikis may be more useful that formal content management systems, how to evaluate wikis and how to install MediaWiki.
• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams (Penguin Group 2006, 220 pages, $27.95) – Not specifically a Wiki book, Wikinomics focuses on peer-production methods, open source software and collaboration techniques that firms are harnessing collective capability to spur innovation, growth and success.
• Wiki Writing: Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom by Matthew Barton and Robert Cummings, editors (Digital Culture Books 2008, 280 pages, $24.95) – Collection of essays helping educators realize the potential of Wikis as writing environments.
• Wikis For Dummies by Dan Woods and Peter Thoeny (For Dummies 2007, 336 pages, $24.99) – Part of the ever popular ”For Dummies” line of books, shows readers a basic interpretation of how to set up Wikis in a corporate setting or on a personal site to retrieve, post and edit information.
• Wikis: Tools for Information Work and Collaboration by Jane Klobas\ (Chandos Publishing 2006, 252 pages, $70.75) – Exploration of wikis for use in libraries, information services, education and business.
• Wiki: Web Collaboration by Anja Ebersbach (Springer 2005, 383 pages, $82.75) – Technical book showing the power of wiki for project based collaboration, including information on installation of popular wiki software as well as introduction ot wiki philosophy.
{ 1 comment }
Tak,
Thanks so much for featuring Wikipatterns as one of your top picks. I’m very grateful!
Cheers,
Stewart
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