Part 2 - Drafting a "Web 2.0 + Young Adult services primer for librarians"

[From previous post]

After thinking about it, I decided to start a wiki for the draft.

It's at web20-libraryservices-ya.wikispaces.com



I figured it would be OK for me to make the draft public, since a precedence has been set before.

Besides, there's a certain aptness to using a Web 2.0 tool, to draft a document about using Web 2.0!

My real concern was about working on both a draft at the wiki and on documents I'd saved on my computer. E.g. duplicating work and/ or getting updates mixed up.

I solved that dilemma by working on the wiki only.

As a backup, I exported the entire wiki to my computer.

The advantage of working on the wiki was being able to create and see the entire structure of the document. And I could easily shift text around (e.g. moving parts of the text from the introduction to the appendix).

I could also write To-Do notes for myself (just using the discussion page creatively).

It was also an efficient way to invite others to read the draft (e.g. send a URL rather than send as email attachment). Especially if they and I were on Chat.

Realised there are more benefits: Sending the URL with my periodic email progress updates meant that the person receiving my updates don't have to deal with pesky attachments and getting confused in the process. Especially the "please ignore previous email; here's the latest update" situations.

Plus, the receiver can make changes direct to the pages.

[Incidentally, creating this wiki made me ask the question: "When do I use a Wiki or Google Docs", heh. I added that part to Preetam's write-up.]

Only disadvantage/ risk was the connectivity to the Internet. A slow connection would cause delays to the editing. If the site goes down and I've not exported the updated versions, that'll really mess things up for me. Luckily that didn't happen.

Besides, I've used wikispaces.com for some time now (since this social experiment, which is still on-going). It's been reliable so far. And I know it well enough to use it confidently (contingent plans and all).

My deadline is 28th Dec. I'm about 90% complete for the draft, barring any major changes (I hope not!)

[Part 3]