SLA in Virtual Worlds

Our space in SL is slowly taking shape

Above is a photo of our space in Second Life (SL) as it currently exists.  We secured the space in February and have been slow to build on it.  Our hope is to make our land (4,096 sq. meters or 44,089 sq. ft.) a space that contains a welcome area, an exhibit area and a sandbox (a place where people can experiment with building things).

Although building structures in SL takes less time than in real life, it still takes time, forethought and skill. If you are interested in working with us on developing our land, please contact me (hurst at hurstassociates.com).  We're interested in getting as many SLA members involved as possible!  If you currently have limited skills in building, we can help you learn what you need to know.

Virtual Library Legislative Day 2008 in Second Life

Valerie Hawkins, of the ALA Library, blogged about National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) May 13 and 14, 2008. If you can't make it to DC on such short notice, you can participate, virtually, in Second Life by heading over to the NLLD kiosk on ALA Island and picking up a free NLLD 2008 t-shirt. Then head over to SLA in Second Life, take a photo of your avatar wearing it, and post it to the picture page of our SLA in SL wiki.

You'll get practice with the SL interface (fooling with the Environment settings to get a decent photo), posting to a wiki, and a free shirt - plus the inter-organizational (ALA and SLA) interaction. Such a deal!

Welcome to SLA's Second Life initiative!

SLA President Stephen Abram wants more SLA members to get involved in social networking tools and Web 2.0.  In January (2008), he launched several workgroups including the Second Life Workgroup.  The Second Life (SL) workgroup is comprised of a growing number of SLA members who want to introduce SL to other members of the Association.  Many in the group also see this as a way of increasing their own knowledge about SL.

The group is involved in three activities:

• Publishing -- Write articles and blog posts that will inform SLA members about Second Life, provide information on library and related activities in SL, and encourage them to explore the virtual world along with instruction for doing so.  The first article produced by the team will be in the June issue of Information Outlook.
• Training --Provide training opportunities for SLA members concerning Second Life.
• Creating Our In-world Environment -- Create an SLA presence in SL, so that SLA members have a place to go that is familiar in content.  The team has secured a space in Second Life for SLA.  If you have an SL avatar, you can teleport to our location by using the Second Life URL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cybrary%20City%20II/64/101/21     

Our goal is to touch SLA members in as many ways as possible with information about Second Life and the activities that special librarians are engaged in there.  While we hope that every SLA member will venture into SL, we know that will not occur, so we'll have events and information outside of SL that everyone can tap into and learn from.

We do see this as an activity that we last after Stephen's term as president. Our hope is to have activities in Second Life for SLA's Centennial.  Perhaps we could hold our own "Veranda Conference" in Second Life!

If you are interested in volunteering on this workgroup, please contact me, Jill Hurst-Wahl, at hurst {at} hurstassociates.com.  If you want to contact me in-world, my avatar is Jillianna Suisei (although I'll see the email more quickly).  We welcome every SLA member who wants to be involved!