SirsiDynix has some of the most innovative library clients ever. We’re in a new world where experimentation and exciting pilots are multiplying like Tribbles (non-Trekkies will just have to look this up!). Cool! Rad! Sweet! Hot! Cat's Pajamas! Whatever your age, this is so engaging and interesting to a profession that thrives on “interesting.”
Seeing the hundreds of Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo sites for libraries; connecting with librarians through Plaxo and LinkedIn; visiting the unbelievably fantastic Active Worlds library at Eastern University in Pennsylvania; seeing visual displays added to OPACs, library story time podcasts from the Web sites; community blogs; DDR and gaming events; Rock & Roll concert nights; and more. Well – it’s just sooooo exciting. Feel the change! Library first life is heading for another new plateau.
I am writing this article as I return from the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. At that event we had a theatre built into our exhibit booth and offered many new TechTalk LIVE and SirsiDynix Institute LIVE sessions. Two special ones were devoted to live tours of the Second Life Libraries. It was just too cool − but more on that later.
Several people, including one from the library press, asked me why Second Life libraries were such an important development. One said they just didn’t “get it.” I know it’s not age, because I’m getting up there, and I get it. I didn’t have a great answer at the time, but it gave me the impetus to write this article. It’s about the experience. It’s about learning by doing. It’s harder to get Second Life in the abstract – much like it was difficult to explain what the Web and Internet were going to be in the early days.
Why is Second Life Library 2.0 Important?
At SirsiDynix we (and especially fun for me) always have our antennae out to sense trends in the information and library worlds. So when we see numbers and events like these, we sense that something significant is afoot:
- Second Life Library 2.0, which has been led by our client, the Alliance Library System, regularly attracts over 5,000 visitors in an evening. Wow!
- As of this month, there are more than 2.5 million registered people in Second Life. Over a million visit there regularly.
- Over 300 librarians are involved in building the Second Life Library 2.0.
- Alliance asked itself the basic question: Can you offer everything a library does, including books, in Second Life? So far, and this is an incomplete A-Z list, the following things exist there:
- A science center
- An art gallery
- Book Talks
- Authors as visitors and as events
- Publishers
- A mystery castle
- A science fiction and fantasy collection
- Information literacy and library research skills classes
- A huge theater
- Training and education spaces
- A health information island
- A medical library
- A walk-in book
- Games
- Search databases like PubMed
- TechSoup
- Educational courses
- OCLC database trials
- Politicians!
- Programming parties
- Wine and cheese parties (yep – virtual food)
- Magazines
- Dances
- Artists' discussions, with books and art
- Chats with fellow patrons, locally and globally
And even . . .
Sounds like a library to me!
The initial creativity seems boundless. As I take my “noob” (newbie) self through Second Life, I am feeling the same thing I felt when I put my first Web site up in late 1994. It’s a combination of excitement, play, a sense of adventure, and a burgeoning feeling that I am seeing the future again. We’re, of course, not the only ones here. Dell Computer runs press conferences, Reuters has an island, and even the venerable ALA Washington Office and their information maven, Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian, can be found there. Many of the familiar names of leading librarians can be found underneath their Second Life avatar identities. Libraries and librarians from around the world, including SirsiDynix clients in Canada, Australia, and Europe, are there.
Where do I look to find out more?
Second Life (started in 2003 by Linden Labs)
Teen Second Life
Info Island Blog
Eye4YouAlliance Blog
M2-Metaverse Messenger (The Second Life newspaper)
Second Life Library Flickr Group (See screenshots)
Second Life Library Del.icio.us links (find articles and sites)
Second Life Library in MySpace
Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County
Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County Teens
Alliance Library System
You can see articles, screenshots, ideas, and commentary in the above links. You can even sign up for free, build or borrow an avatar, and get into Second Life. Learn by playing! The latest School Library Journal and Computers in Libraries have cover stories on Second Life.
SirsiDynix is so excited about Second Life that we’ve taken to sponsoring a few of our clients there. Here’s the exciting (at least to me!) news we announced at ALA Midwinter: SirsiDynix Sponsors Alliance Library System’s Second Life Library 2.0:
Then in January 2007, another SirsiDynix client entered the fray. The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library is no longer just a one-branch library. T&SCPL has opened up a new location in Cybrary City in Second Life. The Capital-Journal, the local newspaper, reports that Jeff Dawson, youth services manager at TSCPL, said his organization recently became a part of this growing trend and now plans to use the program as a new way to reach Topeka youth. “This is so new. We’re not even sure we understand all of it yet,” Dawson said. “We just know we need to be here.”
This screenshot shows Squid Cagney (a.k.a. Stephen Abram) taking a tour of Second Life Library 2.0 with BlueWings Hayek (Kelly Czarnecki, teen librarian at ImaginOn Library Loft of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenberg County). It’s great to have hair again in my Second Life.
Building the Teen Library in Second Life
The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County has started a pilot project in partnership with the Alliance Library System to explore the creation of teen library services in a virtual world. And they’re involving their teens! Any teens (ages 13-17) who are interested in assisting with the creation of a virtual library in Second Life will work with Matt Gullett, emergent technology manager at Main Library, or Kelly Czarnecki, teen librarian at ImaginOn. Cool!
Teen Second Life is a subset of Second Life where the teen world is separate from the adult world and is only accessible to those ages 13-17. Adults require police checks, and it’s a safer space. Over 40,000 avatars are currently created in Teen Second Life. “While many people might compare Second Life to a video game, since it shares many attributes in its look and feel, there are no goals, strategies or objectives like video games; rather, this online environment offers a creative playground to build, interact, and learn from other users/residents. Within Second Life, users or “residents” are represented by avatars, computer-generated representations of people. From the PLC&MC Web site, they brainstorm a bunch of library services that will be offered in Teen Second Life, such as:
· Streamed in audio or video authors, politicians, or other teen-related speakers
· Building, scripting, and designing classes taught by teens and adults
· Book discussions
· Walk-throughs of book or movie scenes
· Machinima (creating videos of SL)
· Book publishing
· Art displays
· CosPlays - dress and act like your favorite anime or manga character
· Music and drama performance
· Contests
· Dancing
Each library offers tours and events within their virtual presences. They have been incredibly generous with the global library community in sharing their knowledge. I am thrilled that the SirsiDynix Institute will be offering a session in April 2007 for a tour of Second Life Library 2.0. This will, of course, be archived as a webcast, and also be available as a podcast through iTunes.
So, here we are on the cusp of a third presence for libraries – we have our physical presence, we have our virtual presence as a Web site, and now we can have a second life in our virtual worlds.
Rev up your avatars. It’s going to be a sweet ride!
Stephen Abram, MLS, is vice president, Innovation, for SirsiDynix. He is the chief strategist for the SirsiDynix Institute (http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/). He is an SLA Fellow, president-elect of SLA, and the past president of the Ontario Library Association and the Canadian Library Association. Stephen would love to hear from you at stephen.abram@sirsidynix.com.
