Libraries Get a Second Life

Library Services in a Virtual World

What is Second Life?

Alliance Library System (ALS) established the first library in this new virtual world; Bradley University was the first academic library in SL.

A 3-d virtual world ALS and virtual libraries have 2 main projects: adult

Second Life (18 yrs and older) and Teen Second Life (for ages 13-17)

SL is populated by close to 15 million avatars SL is a complete community with currency, culture,

programs, businesses, recreation, buildings, and services Over 5,000 library visitors per day SL is also being used to facilitate meetings and education,

i.e. ALA

Avatars

In Second Life, an “avatar” is a digital character that represents you

Avatars can walk, talk, fly, swim, anything you can do

Each participant gets to create their own avatar – tall, short, male, female, buffed or not

Every avatar is a resident of SL and you may have more than one avatar

Birth of an avatar

The Transformation of Puglet Dancer

Second Life has its own currency – “lindens” $1 USD = about 265 lindens Can be used to purchase clothing, hair,

houses, land Can run your own business Some people make a real life living in

Second Life Check out economic statistics at

http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

Commerce in Second Life

Librarians in Second Life

Speaking specifically of the islands that are part of the Info Island Archipelago

Many librarians are volunteers who are in Second Life on their own and do not represent their library

Have about 200 total volunteers More and more educational institutions are

entering SL Librarians want to partner with teaching faculty

to use SL as an immersive learning tool

How It All Started

April 2006 – First rented building, first small plot of land Alliance Library System and Charlotte-Mecklenburg County

Library agree to collaborate on project May 2006 – First island – Info Island I August 2006 – Info Island II donated October 2006 – Grand opening of Info Island I October 2006 – Eye4YouAlliance opens on Teen Second Life October 2006 – Cullom-Davis Library, Bradley University

opens December 2006 – Eduisland built as rental for educators who

wanted to work together and to be close to library December 2006 – HealthInfo Island built with NLM GMR

consumer health outreach grant December 2006 – Cybrary City built for participating librarians

donated by Talis

How it kept going

January 2007 – Sirsi/Dynix Announces Sponsorship of Info Island I and Eye4YouAlliance Island in Teen Second Life

February 2007 - Built Rachelville February 2007 – Put up new ALS building February 2007 – Put up new opera building, ALA

building, and machinima school March 2007 – Renaissance Island, an immersive

education environment 2007 – Rich Idiot built to promote the book Why is This

Idiot Rich and I’m Not by Richard Shemin

And kept going

June 2007 – Bradley University Island 2007 – HealthInfo Island 2007 – Land of Lincoln to celebrate the

150th anniversary of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and upcoming bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth

Why are Librarians in Second Life?

To investigate library services in virtual worlds To attract new users to the traditional library

through referral To provide library services 24/7 To meet librarians from around the world To be where many of our users and non-users

are! To work with faculty to enhance the learning

experience

What types of services do libraries provide?

Reference – in avatar, virtual, and email Programs – weekly programs on an array of

topics Exhibits – World War II posters, Alzheimer’s

Disease, art shows Collections grouped by topic – web

resources and Second Life formatted books Book discussions and author visits

Programming and Events

Lifeblood of the second life library – keep people coming back

Second Life Literary Festival Ball at Lincoln era White House Ongoing book discussions Art shows Author talks

Reference

Info Island recognized as one of central education centers in Second Life because of live staffing at reference desk

In 2007, 6769 patrons were served They asked 1921 SL directional

questions, 2292 SL reference questions and 186 real life directional questions

Reference desk is staffed 80 hrs/wk by about 40 volunteers

Collection Development

Most collections are made up of urls for websites on a topic

Each subject area contains interactive displays as well as a surrounding ambience

Special exhibits for special celebrations such as Martin Luther King Day

The Islands of the InfoIsland Archipelago

Continues to grow and have recently moved the Archipelago to allow for more expansion

About 7 or 8 islands are waiting to join Mixture of islands owned by ALS and other

nonprofit institutions such as libraries, colleges and universities, museums, etc.

Still have places where libraries can have a space for a short period of time to establish a base, learn and explore opportunities

From one island to almost 50

Info Island International with an information desk and other areas with information on various cultures to reflect the international flavor of second life

Renaissance Island, an immersive learning environment for 16th century Tudor England

Land of Lincoln to celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth

Islands continued

Eduislands 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and Cybrary City 1 and 2 for libraries and other educational institutions to work together to have their own presence in second life

Virtual Ability island to assist disabled to exist in Second Life

HealthInfo Island

Medical library Consumer health library Accessibility center Path of support to work with other health

support groups in Second Life Training programs on how to find good

medical information on the Internet Blog entry in Consumer Reports blog

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/health/2008/06/finding-an-onli.html

American Library Association in Second Life

ALA Arts InfoIsland donated Successful celebration of Banned Books

Week Build of ALA Island by SJSU graduate

students Members of ACRL in SL meet regularly

to discuss what can be done in SL and recently had panel discussion

SLA will be here in 2008

Teen Second Life

Eye4You Alliance Island thrives under leadership of Kelly Czarnecki

Land of Lincoln Teen Grid added to celebrate bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth

Successful college fair and many other events held

2008 Initiatives

February 2008 – held Literary Festival February 2008 – Talis Cybrary Island for new international island

for libraries and information organizations to establish presence in Second Life

March 2008 – Virtual Worlds conference April 2008 – Two year celebration June 2008– Stepping into History conference July 2008 –Investing InfoIsland, funded by ALA/FINRA to

promote the library as an unbiased source of investing information

August 2008—Only Yesterday grand opening, American experience of the 1930s -- from the migrant camps to the golden age of radio and Hollywood film

Land of Lincoln development and events in Second Life and Teen Second Life

Challenges

Funding and Sustainability Staffed by volunteers thus burnout is an issue It is like the gold rush – everyone is going to stake their

claim – partnerships are key Steep learning curve Explore What types of library services do virtual world users want? Not everyone understands when you are in SL you are

working – you might be having fun too; sometimes convincing bosses of this is challenging

Hardware and connection required – must have fairly new computer and use broadband connection

Can be highly addictive and takes a lot of time

What Have We Learned

Virtual world residents do want a library – we built it and they are coming in droves!

Collaboration is the key and partnerships are essential

Exhibits are very popular and author programs attract a crowd

SL is fun – it’s this fun factor that is encouraging such amazing growth.

The speed with which this is unfolding is unbelievable!

Believe it or not, people still ask for books in a virtual world

Collaboration is not only key but king

Talis – funded Cybrary City to help libraries establish a presence

OCLC – provided test of Question PointSirsi-Dynix – sponsored Info Island for

one year and Eye4You AllianceNMC – allowed us to use beautiful

conference space

Buzzword for 2008 and for libraries in virtual worlds:

Immersive education experiences – change the current learning model to one of immersive participation, roleplay, observation through building, reenacting, writing, and participating

Second Life/Info Island blogs

Second Life Library – http://infoisland.org YouthTech Eye4YouAlliance blog –

http://eye4youalliance.youthtech.info Health InfoIsland blog –

http://healthinfoisland.blogspot.com/

Educational Uses

Immersive learning Professional development Collaboration Global events without traveling Interaction and searching Presentation tools

ICT Library

Future trends

Google’s Lively Open Source Businesses/publishers in Second Life

Questions/Comments/Contact information

Questions/Comments? Barbara (Puglet Dancer) Contact Info

barbara@bradley.edu bgalik@gmail.com On Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn,etc

Guus (Namro Omran) Contact Info brekelajp@gmail.com http://SecondLifeSearch.blogspot.com On Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.