Connecting Librarian

Ada Lovelace

March 24th means its Ada Lovelace Day and I am taking the opportunity to blog about a woman in technology in libraries that I have great admiration for.

Before I do, if you want to read more about Ada Lovelace Day, check out the website and all the other great entries that will appear there, recognising great women in science and technology. You can also check out my blog entry celebrating the day last year, where I honoured the amazing Helene Blowers.

This year, I have the great delight of acknowledging my friend, colleague, co-presenter (next week) and co-blogger (Libraries Interact), Kathryn Greenhill.

Kathryn is an amazing whirlwind of a person, but if you get caught in her circle, you are happy to be there.

Kathryn Greenhill

She is a dedicated, passionate, intelligent, thoughtful and forward thinking librarian and I wish there were a lot more librarians like her.

She was the first librarian in Australia to recognise the importance of virtual worlds and has been able to successfully expand from that and into other areas of technology. She is a sought after speaker right around Australia and when she speaks she always has something to say that is well worth listening to and following up on.

She is a past Auroran, won the VALA Travel Scholarship and traveled to the USA to study Open Source systems and is working on her Ph.D. Masters’ Thesis. She works in a new public library and is excitedly pursuing options for her local community as well as investigating and offering ideas for the broader Australian and world library communities.

And she has a family, to whom she is dedicated.

I really admire women who can do all this and more, love what they do, share what they love and do so without losing in their family life. For me, Kathryn tops the list.

So Happy Ada Lovelace Day to Kathryn and to all those women in science and technology – but particularly in library science and technology. From one practictioner to many others – your efforts, your passion and all your hard work are so very much appreciated.

Tom Peters, Lori Bell, Matt Gullett, Kelly Czarnecki. Celebrating its first year of existence.

• Second Life is a virtual world, not a game
• Alliance Library System and PLCMC were the first libraries established in it
• 2 main projects, adult Second Life and Teen Second Life (13-17 yrs)
• Over 5.5 million registered avatars
• Complete online community – cultural programs, business, recreation, buildings, property and services
• 5,000 visitors per day to the AL Archipelago
• 2-3,000 teen visitors a day to the Eye4You Alliance Island
• used for meetings, workshops and education (ie. ALA)

Avatars

• digital representation that represents you in-world
• they can walk, talk, fly, swim, teleport, anything you want them to do
• each participant creates an avatar in any physical description you want

Commerce

• SL has its own currency – lindens ($US=$350L)
• purchase clothing, hair, housing etc
• growing business

InfoIsland: Main Library and Welcome Center has 40 hours a week or reference service, using Question Point. They have a science-fiction and fantasy portal, with books, podcasts, authors etc. Pantheon Performance Center – live concerts. Open air auditoriums, medical library, Imagination Island (donated by grieving parents) – Rachelville (for their daughter) and Vendorville (just starting), Renaissance Island – with Henry VIII who is the apartment manager – period space.

Eye4You Isle – adults involved who want to work with the teens have to have extensive background checks before being allowed to do so. Teens in E4Y come from all over the world, don’t always use their local library, but they are there in SL. Working with a developer and the teens to develop the island.

Ideal for E4Y was to create a space where the teens could explore what they want from a library. Its a space for interactive programming and building relationships, mentoring. Only 2 out of 90 Teen Second Life island are available to all teens – E4Y is one, the other islands are closed school spaces etc.

Services provided:

• Reference
• Programs
• Exhibits – World War II posters, Alzheimers, author Vachel Lindsay, Sept 11 remembrance
• Collections – web resources, Second Life formatted e-books and audio books
• Book and gentre discussions
• Training

Most visits to Info Islands are for exhibits and events. Librarians from around the world volunteer their time to provide library service on Second Life. People like having the avatar to avatar interaction.

Why are Librarians in SL?

• Its a new professional frontier – need to be trying it out
• Where many library users and non-users are – be where your users area
• To attract new users to the traditional library through referral – back to physical libraries
• To investigate library service in virtual worlds – trying out new options
• To provide library services 24/7
• To meet and work with librarians worldwide – collaboration
• To learn and use the 3D Web, the emerging web interaction interface

How it all started

• April 2006 first rental building
• May 2006 – first island odnated
• October 2006 – Grand opening of Info Island I
• December 2006 – grant for Health Info Island – one of the busiest spots
• December 2006 – Cybrary City for librarians donated by Talis
• January 2007 – Sirsi-Dynix sponsors InfoIsland I and Eye4You Alliance
• February 2007 – Rachelville, Vendorville, new ALS building, opera building, ALA building and coming soon the Renaissance building.

Weather is always great, but you can force the sun to stay out. Can fly, walk, teleport and get around really easily.

Challenges

• funding and sustainability – got lots of donors giving time and talent, how to cover things like the monthly maintenance fee
• volunteer burnout – people get enthused, spend too much time then something has to give
• parternships are the key – not being paralleled in the real world – ie. with museums etc
• steep learning curve
• what library services do virtual world users want?
• What, you’re working in SL? Right…..
• Robust hardware & Internet connection are essential
• No integrated audio and web yet – trying to get real life resources integrated into it
• Highly addictive and time intensive

What have we learned

• virtual world residents do want a library – they come in droves
• collaboration is the key and partnerships are essential
• exhibits – very popular, events attract crowds
• SL is fun – fun factor as catalyst for amazing growth
• Speed with which this is unfolding is unbelievable – lost an island this morning, had to spend time finding it and putting it back in its proper place
• People still ask for books in a virtual world
• ALS & PLCMC have received huge national and international attention – recognized as key innovators

What’s next

• Permanent virtual ALS staff working out of the ALS world headquarters, same for PLCMC
• More traditional info resources available – eg. audiobooks
• Pioneer meeting technologies to facilitate virtual meetings eg. adding audio to meeting protocols
• Integrate Info Island and Eye4You into ALS & PLCMC dilay operations so all staff are SL functional
• Actively promote the Alliance Information Archipelago
• Improve transportation around the islands – eg. people mover, better teleporting
• Create an Info Island for kids

Why is it good for libraries

• Be seen as leaders in the library community
• Provides national profile and recognition as innovative library systems
• Easier to recruit excellent board members and staff
• Easier to land big grants to provide better service for our members
• As requested by members, testing new technologies and services ie. virtual library services

Info Island – http://www.infoisland.org/
YouthTech Eye4You Alliance blog – http://eye4youalliance.youthtech.info/