by Thanks to all those who came to Amy’s and my session on Creating 3D Reference: Adventures in Second Life. It was a tough time slot – the last day, right after lunch on a sunny 31 degree day and up against the Pecha Kucha (which sounded like it was a blast next door). We were honoured to present with the Schanachies (and suitably awed). Here are the slides from our portion of the presentation from il2008. And a big thanks to Amy – a great presentation buddy! More to come on the conference when I return – it’s been amazing.
Second Life
Google Gab
Google is often the fodder of much discussion among librarians. The vast majority of librarians I know love and use Google frequently (I use Google Reader, iGoogle, gmail, gtalk, Google maps, Google Scholar and Google Books). Librarians have often struggled to figure out the relationship they have with Google – some see great potential while others see Google as a threat. Google sought a partnership with libraries for their Google Books project and suggested they would like to continue the relationship, even starting a newsletter for librarians. As Steven Cohen and others have pointed out, they have not kept up this relationship. The Chronicle of Higher Education has since picked up this story. There is some great discussion occurring on the story, so take a look and consider what you think of the matter.
Google has also become the talk of librarians thanks to the release of Lively, Google’s virtual world. I’ve already jumped in and started looking around (I’m Darrwyn if you happen to be in Lively). At first glance, it seemed to be more like IMVU, a 3d chat room, than a virtual world. It wasn’t as intuitive as I thought it might be either. I found it a little odd that you choose your room before creating your avatar. I found it interesting that you can be in multiple rooms at once (simply tab between rooms). Rooms do show who is visiting, which will result in less empty world syndrome, a phenomenon that is commonplace in Second Life. It is also Windows only at the moment – I’m hoping this will change soon. I think there is potential though. I will be spending some time in there for the next while, learning the ropes, creating rooms and seeing how it compares with Second Life. One of the nice things is that Lively rooms can be put on a webpage – could this be a new step for virtual reference (I’ll have more on this idea later, so stay posted). We already have meebo widgets on our webpages, perhaps there will soon be a Lively room as well.
Update – It’s much easier to move around when using a mouse with my laptop. If I had started out this way, I may have felt the interface was a little more intuitive than I originally did.
SL Presentations Gallore
I was invited to speak at York University by the Emerging Technologies group about SL and libraries (I threw in some education too). It was a great turn out – I was impressed by the interest and questions. Perhaps we’ll see them in SL sometime soon. In case you’d like to see what I talked about, you can check out my York Presentation.
I’ve got a bunch of other presentations coming up (the next one at Computers in Libraries) and a research leave. Lots of work ahead. I’ll share when they’re done.
Webinar Wonders
Well, I just finished my first webinar. It was a very interesting experience. I’ve attended a number of webinars but never presented one before. I’m quite comfortable with presenting in front of a group. I like being able to read the audience and adjusting as necessary. Webinars remove this important aspect from the presenter. I talked into a phone for 45 minutes, hoping that all was technically right and that everyone could here me and the ppt was moving well. I opted to leave questions until the end which meant lines were muted while I talked. It’s very difficult to tell if you’re connecting with your audience.
The experience reinforced one of the advantages of Second Life. The webinar made it difficult to connect properly with the participants. I find I have the same problem with distance education – chatting and email are fine but very impersonal in a way. Second Life allows me to connect a person with a physical representation through their avatar. It makes a profound psychological difference for me as it creates a different connection than chat alone can not allow – I can picture someone/something when I think of the person. If Second Life was robust enough, the webinar could have been much more personal and interactive. I can only hope that Linden Labs will reach the point where webinars can be held their effectively (I know that there are some offered now, but there is room for improvement).
All in all, the webinar was interesting experience and one I hope to do again. Thanks to all who joined me today!
It’s Here!
Well, it’s here finally! We have an island! It came a couple of days ago. I didn’t post about it because we don’t have anything there yet, in fact, we still don’t. Access is limited at the moment, until we have things up and running. I’ll send out full information (including island name) once we have it terraformed and at least 1 building there, so stay tuned!
SL Report
I’ve been asked by a few people for the report I wrote up about McMaster’s SL Virtual Reference Pilot. It’s now online here. It doesn’t really delve into service models and such as it probably should. I hope to do some in-depth research on virtual reference in SL and virtual worlds in an upcoming research leave, so I’ll share when it’s done.
Second Life Virtual Reference Pilot
I’m not sure if I’ve mention this or not, but we have decided to continue our SL virtual reference pilot project into the fall. In 3 months, with 80 hours of service and without much marketing, we answered over 120 SL and real life (RL) related questions from SL residents, McMaster affiliates (alumni, incoming students and existing students) and librarians. We hope to market the service more this term, recruit more volunteers and have already increased our hours of service to 8 a week. If you have any questions about the pilot, please feel free to contact me. I’m off to the WNY/O ACRL conference tomorrow to talk about reference in a virtual world and our pilot and will try to remember to post my slide, in case you’re interested.
Thanks to fellow SL archivist Christi Janus for his kind review of our pilot on his blog!
Approach with Caution
Second Life should be approached with caution by academic institutions as there are numerous ramifications to consider. Second Life is not always a peaceful, quiet place – it is filled with sex, gambling, and griefers and depending on personalities, one may become addicted to the virtual world. We can control spaces we own in Second Life but we can not prevent students from leaving our space and entering more virtually dangerous areas. As academics, we must consider what it means to bring a student into this atmosphere. This is not the first time academia has encountered this muddy area though. The Internet’s birth is similar in a number of ways – it started out clunky and often with sex and gambling as a major portion of content. As with Second Life, the Internet can be an addictive space. We have since learned to work in this space and to use it effectively. In fact, many of us cant imagine working without it. Perhaps we will be the same with virtual worlds in the future.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently had an article cautioning academic use of Second Life. I think that it is important to consider what it means to bring students into Second Life, what are the ethical concerns of this virtual world? That being said, I don’t think that that should scare us away from exploration. We need to caution and educate students as to what it means to be in a virtual world – what are the protocols, how can we behave in a virtual world. One of the important parts of exploration is discussion and we should have a discussion at all levels – departmental, administrative and campus wide. Consider what it means to you and your students to be in a virtual world and approach with caution.
Second Life vs. Real Life
Second Life has been the subject of praise and contempt, and rightly so. Second Life has a number of issues (ie. stability) but also offers us some interesting opportunities (ie. distance education). I have admitted that I am still in the exploration phase of Second Life after a year and that it still needs a lot of work before I’ll be completely sold on this virtual world. That being said, I also find that I have to defend my exploration of Second Life.
A recent post on the Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty blog notes that talented librarians are devoting time to a leisure world rather than doing good things in the real world. I have a couple of problems with this statement. First of all, while Second Life is certainly a leisure world, many librarians are not working on leisure activities. We are trying to supply needed resources (ie. links to library resources) that may have gone unnoticed to a new user group. The user group in Second Life may not be the user group we see in the libraries and we need to reach all patrons. Higher education has taken an active interest in Second Life and academic libraries are looking at ways to support the classes, as we would in the real world. Being in Second Life is a point of need issue. The post quotes a letter sent to the American Libraries journal. This letter assumes that Second Life consumes all free time. While some individuals become addicted to the virtual world, many of us are there for work and continue to have a life outside of the virtual world. I still have enough time to teach a distance education course and if I was really ambitious, other volunteer projects. Other librarians are not as lucky as I am and are exploring the virtual world on their own time. They recognize virtual worlds as a technology that needs to be explored and are devoted to helping the profession stay current, even on their own time. I can’t speak for their free time but most I know do not spend all of their time in the virtual world.
Second Life is not something that everyone can understand. Many of us, myself included, are still trying to understand the importance of virtual worlds. Virtual worlds however, can not be ignored. If we do not stay current and examine new technologies, we will be blindsided and be in a constant state of catch-up. Second Life is part of my job, not my sole job, and I do not feel I am doing a disservice by exploring opportunities in this virtual world. Something will replace Second Life but at least we’ll be ready for it.
Celebrate!
I’ve been pretty quite lately as I get ready to change to a liaison model of librarianship and try to finish projects before the needed vacation.
It’s hard to believe, but today marks my 1st birthday, that is in Second Life. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been there a whole year! I feel I’ve still got so much to learn. I’m still trying to figure out the role of libraries and education in Second Life. I think there still lots of growth to happen and I’m excited that I can still be a part of it. Let’s see what happens in the next year!
While on the topic of Second Life, I thought I’d also note that today is the last day of our virtual reference pilot project there. It’s been an interesting project, successful I think and will likely continue. I’ll be preparing a report over the next week or so. I’ll be presenting on it in a couple of places, so watch out for it if you’re interested (or you can contact me if you can’t see it).