Oct. 17, 2008 – The Friends of the St. Thomas Public Libraries will be meeting at 5:45 p.m., on Monday, Oct. 27, at the Caribbean Genealogy Library (CGL) on Raphune Hill, 2nd level, next to Mango Tango at Al Cohen's Plaza, St. Thomas. The agenda will include various committee reports and an appearance by former senator and legislative archivist/researcher Donald "Ducks" Cole in his capacity as director of the Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums.
FOSTPL's temporary venue change will encourage all current FOSTPL members and prospective members to attend a free professional development "webinar" at the Caribbean Genealogy Library on "Best Practices for Setting Up Wikis." The presentation will be held from 3:30-5:30 p.m., on Monday, Oct. 27. The webinar is co-hosted by CGL and the St. Thomas-St. John Library Association.
"Best Practices for Setting Up Wikis" is a re-broadcast of a live event hosted by the Florida/Caribbean chapter of the Special Libraries Association (SLA). It will be repeated at 5:30-7:30 p.m., on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at the genealogy library.
A "wiki" (a Hawaiian word for "fast"), is a collection of hypertext documents (such as web pages) developed collaboratively. The best known of these is Wikipedia; technical support knowledge bases, libraries and corporate intranets also take advantage of this platform for gathering and sharing information collectively.
No prior knowledge of wikis is needed. Familiarity with other online collaboration tools like bulletin boards, weblogs and/or instant messaging would be beneficial but not required to attend.
For more information or how to join the Caribbean Genealogy Library, call Lugo at 715-4421, or any CGL volunteer at 714-2136.
For more information on the activities of FOSTPL, visit their Web site, at www.fostpl.org.