Back In Circulation 2026

As information professionals, our work often necessitates engaging with large bodies of knowledge. Without proper documentation, however, such knowledge can easily become lost due to staffing and organizational changes. This prompts a question: how do you build a system that encourages proper documentation of procedures, responds to the needs of stakeholders, and is capable of surviving institutional change?

In this presentation on project and change management, we will discuss the process of building a wiki-based system of documentation and knowledge-sharing for the newly-formed Access Services department in the UW-Madison Libraries. We will specifically discuss our use of templates, audience-driven taxonomy, maintenance schedules, and best practice codification, and how a careful approach has allowed us to transfer over a decade’s worth of both written and verbal knowledge into a new system for staff ranging from part-time student workers to full-time subject matter experts. We will also discuss the institutional conversations that this transition has prompted, as well as the hidden benefits of the new system.

Our approach is tool-agnostic and designed to be adapted to one’s institution, making it easy for other workplaces to modify and use it. By sharing our experiences we hope to inspire attendees to consider wiki-based information storage models, as well as to aid them in such transitions by sharing both our lessons learned as well as our ongoing successes.