As chair of the Second Life Workgroup, I've just finished my year-end report to Stephen Abram, Association President. A copy of the report is below. (The formating is not quite the same as the MS Word document.) If you have questions, concerns, etc., please leave a comment of email me at hurst at hurstassociates.com Thank you!
TO: Stephen Abram
FROM: Jill Hurst-Wahl
DATE: December 17, 2008
SUBJECT: Second Life Workgroup
RECOMMENDATIONS:
As chair of the Second Life Workgroup, I recommend the following:
1. That
SLA creates a Virtual Worlds (VW) Advisory
Council, which reports to the SLA Board of Directors. This Advisory Council would be charged with
setting the short and long-term direction that SLA
takes with virtual worlds in general and Second Life specifically. Members are people who spend time (work) in
virtual worlds and see themselves as VW advocates that interact with SLA members, leadership and staff. Council members should be seen as advisors,
leaders and doers – with all three being equally important. However, the Association should not rely on
Council members solely for all VW activity.
2. That
SLA provides a budget that can be used to
create, maintain and promote the Association’s virtual world activities. Like others SLA
units (i.e., chapters and divisions), the money must be readily available to
the Advisory Council for their use.
3. That
the following people be invited to join this Advisory Council upon its
creation:
- Heather O’Daniel (Rio Grande Chapter)
-
Patricia Alderman (Virginia Chapter)
-
Nancy Kellett (Florida and Caribbean Ch.)
-
Marcella Dulka (Illinois Chapter)
-
Diane Mogren (Cleveland Chapter)
-
Christy
Confetti Higgins (Rocky Mtn. Chapter)
-
Scott
Brown (Rocky Mountain Chapter)
-
Amilie
Anatine (avatar, Rio Grande Chapter)
-
Lynda
Larsen (Georgia Chapter)
Each of these SLA
members has shown dedication and interest in learning, exploring and being a
part of Second Life. Some have an
amazing dedication to and knowledge about Second Life that will be extremely
valuable to the Association.
In addition, the Association
Office contact for the Council should be from the Professional Development and the Council should have a Board
liaison (hopefully someone with an interest in virtual worlds).
4.
That SLA
maintains a presence in Second Life for the foreseeable future. Rent on the current land will come due in
February ($188/year). This space could
continue to house the Association’s efforts including a virtual world classroom
for ClickU.
John Lowery has reported that, “Professional Development and Click U are
very interested in growing our presence in SL. Two of the CEO's objectives for
2009 are to establish a Click U presence in SL and to conduct at least one (and
hopefully multiple) seminar via a combined in-world and out of world
model.”
5.
That
the SLA Centennial Commission works with interested members and the Virtual
Worlds Advisory Council SLA to
create Centennial activities in Second Life during 2009. This would be a great opportunity to expose
more of to Second Life as well as offer a
unique way to celebrate the Association’s 100th anniversary.
BACKGROUND: In
January 2008, you launched the Second Life Workgroup at the Leadership
Summit. The workgroup has had the
following vision and mission:
Vision: As part of the
initiatives launched by SLA President, Stephen Abram,
this initiative will complement the existing learning opportunities available
to SLA members. In addition, it will assist in jump-starting and showcasing the innovative
and forward-thinking aspects of librarianship and the information profession.
Mission: To facilitate SLA members
learning about and exploring Second Life (SL), as part of SLA’s
overall initiative to have members more involved in social networking tools
including virtual worlds.
Through the efforts of individuals in the workgroup, we
have:
-
Created a welcoming and functional space in
Second Life that includes a sandbox, areas for presentations, and space for
informal gatherings. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cybrary%20City%20II/59/100/22 SLA will begin
paying rent on this one acre (4096 sq
meters) piece of land in February 2009 ($188/year). Heather O’Daniel and Amilie Anatine
spearheaded our development in-world.
-
Developed a wiki for disseminating
information. While many members have contributed to the wiki, Mimi Calter took the initiative to set it up. (http://wiki.sla.org/display/SLASECONDLIFE/)
-
Created a Google Calendar for events. This calendar can be “fed” to other sites and
in-world, so that publishing information on upcoming events can be accomplished
more easily. (http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=slasecondlifecalendar%40gmail.com)
-
Created
a blog for the group. While Christy
Confetti Higgins set up the blog, Pat Alderman has been a tireless contributor
to the blog and had posted information about Second Life that the team (and
others) should know. (http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/sla_in_second_life/)
-
Held
Click U sessions on Second Life, followed by in-world training (Christy
Confetti Higgins and Scott Brown). [Eight sessions total.]
-
Held
training in-world to teach people more advance skills, including building (Heather
O’Daniel and Amilie Anatine).
- Hosted events in Second Life for SLA members and other interested avatars, including:
- What SLA is
doing with/in Second Life?
- Real Worlds, Virtual Libraries
- Engaging with LIS Students in Second Life (in
conjunction with SAAAC)
- Talking, looking, flying, searching: A research
report on information seeking behavior in SL
- Economic Education and Second Life (arranged by
Kan Kin)
- Economic Education/Research and Virtual Worlds (arranged
by Kan Kin)
- Developing an Global Innovation Culture in SL
- Published an article in Information Outlook
that was coordinated by Richard Hulser, with input from many team members.
-
Created a video piece for the annual conference
with input from staff at LexisNexis (Michele Vivona and Denise Koenig) and help from SLA HQ, AVMG, Mimi Calter and
others at Stanford University, and many
members of the workgroup. This was truly
a collaborative effort. (We don’t know
what happened to the final video, but we had hoped to be able to post it
online. If there is still a possibility
of doing so, please let us know.)
Besides those team members mentioned above, there are other
team members that I want to mention in this report, whose tireless
contributions have been important to our efforts – Nancy Kellett, Marcy Dulka, and Diane Mogren.
Anecdotal evidence tells us that we have indeed drawn SLA members into Second Life. Not only some who had not explored it
before, but also some who had limited exposure to SL. Our events gave people a reason to be there
and to become accustomed to the environment.
Anecdotally, we also know that we have made a difference in SL. More people are now aware of SLA, which is a positive.
And we have had non-SLA members attend some of our events. Paraphrasing Pat Alderman, while we have not
achieved a sense of community in Second Life, SLA
has achieved at least some recognition in-world.
While we have done much, in reality we have done very
little. As we review the year, committee
members have asked these questions:
-
We have met our basic goals, but have we made SLA truly a part of Second Life?
-
Has SLA become
a destination for people in Second Life?
-
Are we having an impact on Second Life?
The answer to each question is “no” and this is
disconcerting to some people. While these were not part of our goals, some feel
that these are what we should measure our success on. However, I believe that the creation of a new
Advisory Committee and the other recommendations, at the beginning of this
document, would begin to change the no’s into yes’s. I hope that you will put forth these
recommendations for adoption at the January SLA Board of Directors meeting.
Finally, Stephen, thank you for asking me to lead this group
in 2008. Doing so pushed me to learn
more about SL (and there is always something to learn). I also met more SLA
members; some of whom I would not have met otherwise. You’ll notice that I have not listed myself
to be part of the VW Advisory Council.
In 2009, I will be re-balancing my work life and volunteer activities,
due my new position. I also truly
believe that the people listed as possible Council members have the passion and
skill that will be needed. In addition,
I know that there are already people among them that could aptly lead their
efforts.
