Ivan’s comment on CW’s post has prodded me into suggesting a time for another meetup.
How about:
- Wednesday 27th December
- 7pm - 6pm Western Australian Time (I think that’s 2am SL time)
- Australian Libraries Building
We were making noises about having a regular kind of “open house” meeting..so there’d be a time when you were more likely to find some other Oz (and Singaporean!) SLibrarians around.
What’s a good time for everyone? I’m happy to change the time above to something else, it’s just a starting point.
December 24th, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
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Fancy tobogganing down a mountain range that represents a line graph of monthly reference queries? How about climbing from bar to bar that shows the cumulative number of loans per week?
It’s possible in Second Life.
That’s Emerald climbing up a floating pie chart in the Michigan Library Consortium building in Cybrary City. It shows the MLC membership by library type.
At the moment, it’s just cool to clamber all over, but I have an inkling that this is an effective way to understand statistics. I can imagine walking through interlinked data and seeing relationships between figures represented spatially (eg. staff hours on ref. desk vs. number of enquiries vs. day vs. hour). Maybe even picking up new relationships or experimenting with what happens to the system if you make one bit of the graph larger. Just speculating
I chatted with Evie Mikazuki from the MLC. She’d been making a screencast in Second Life last time we met. I had presumed it was to introduce staff to what goes on in Second Life. Oh no, much better - she’d used it to illustrate a “best case scenario” for strategic planning. I think this is the type of application that Fiona’s earlier post on machima hinted at.
The result when your library building moves for no apparent reason.
(It would be rude to mention that my host trapped me to my chair with a strange contraption that can trace people, smoke them out, send them into orbit and “listen” to what’s being typed into a chat box far away…let’s just say that she educated me about further possibilities in Second Life.
I educated her in Aussie idiom. I hadn’t realised that the term “stuff up” wasn’t worldwide…ooops)
December 21st, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
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I met Rain Noonan this morning. She deeded the library land to the Oz Lib group.
You’ll notice she’s our newest member, as she had to join up to do so. Welcome Rain! … a phrase often said in Australia.
That means:
- We can set objects so that any of us in the group can manipulate them
- We can make a directory entry for the library
- We can create a description of the library in the directory.
I have no idea how to do things with the directory. Anyone want to take it on and report back?
December 16th, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
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If we were a bit worse for wear from virtual beer and dancing at our party, then think of the Talis chaps at their office party last night.
I found poor Ajax so out of it that his status was “away”, but he was still chugging back the lager and cutting up the dance floor in the Talis building.
Not one to let a drunken av. attempt driving, I encirlced him with cows for his own protection. As one does. In SL anyhow.
Just my little way of saying “Thanks for Cybrary City”. Not sure if this is what Paul Miller meant when he said he wanted to see what librarians would do if given a virtual space 
December 15th, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
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Great party last night, though it does demonstrate why a faster/bigger computer and broadband link is a desirable gift at any time of the year!
Following suggestions from the Library Generator at the party I came accross a wiki full of library blogs. And a bunch of other stuff to do with the “Library 2.0 ” meme.
I think I have some enjoyable time spending to do following some of these (new to me) resourses … http://tinyurl.com/pvzvp
December 14th, 2006
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Curious | Uncategorized |
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I had a great time at the party last night. Although not many of us were there (we missed you snail and Ivan) I daresay those of us who were there enjoyed ourselves. Lorelei Junot, Abbey Zenith, Rocky Vallejo, Cindy Elkhart, JJ Drinkwater and Fleet Goldenberg, all US-based, stayed up to show us around and treated us to visits to the State Library of Kansas building (right next to the Australian Libraries building and linked by a yellow brick road!), the Info Island Conference Centre, and the Caledon Library.
I was touched by the hospitality of the Kansas librarians, who made a welcome banner for us, as well as all sorts of Australiana to add to the atmosphere. (Click on the picture for more information.)
It was great to catch up with Hypatia Arcadia, Fiona Bradley and Curious Forager - and lovely to meet all the US folks.
Brainstorming with Lorelei Junot and thinking of ways to make Info Island more welcoming was interesting and gave me a bit to think about (how do we make Second Life more inviting for newbies?). And I particularly enjoyed visiting the Caledon Library with the Caledon Librarian, JJ Drinkwater.
We amused ourselves playing with the Library 2.0 Ideas Generator Monolith. Some of my favourites from the evening:
- Empower Libraryland
- Glance sideways at the Library 2.0 bandwagon and embed it into your OPAC
- Leverage the awesome power of the biblioblogosphere
- Engage Michael Stephens and reach Library 2.0 nirvana overnight
And the dancing afterwards - excellent fun!
More pictures at Flickr.
December 14th, 2006
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CW | Uncategorized |
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Exciting news at the end!!
Oh adventures, adventures. It’s being with other people that makes Second Life worthwhile. A mob of old buildings without people are boring, but with other people, it’s magic.
Here’s a couple of snapshots from the last two days.
I never get to sit on the pink hippos at home!
A spontaneous outside meeting, discussing how to get universities involved in Second Life, and how the Kansas State Library is now holding their staff meetings (for all staff) in Second Life. We were suddenly turned upside down.
The Australian Libraries building is looking a bit different, in preparation for
our party this Wednesday 13th 1am -3am SL time . David Pattern popped in (yes he had seen the
last post on VLINT..and yes, we both blushed). We danced a bit, found some music and then he showed me two mashups he’d cobbled together after being in Second Life for 5 days. More details about them
on his blog. If this is 5 day’s work, I wonder what he’ll come up with after six months!!
-
The tie dyed OPAC ball - this interrogates the holdings of the
University of Huddersfield when you enter a search in the chat window (eg. “/1 search Cloudstreet”). It also checks the patron database for your second life name and tells you if you have loans, requests or fines.
-
Here’s the great thing..the generator is in our library building..right now.
Dave is very kindly lending it to us as a toy for the party. We have the dance floor, we have the music. I can hand out party hooters and sparklers and a wicked vodka that will have your av. falling down drunk..Lori Bell is getting up at 3am to give us a tour of Info Island…maybe some other SL folk will turn up,too. I’m looking forward to it. (Note to self..double check the prim limit…in case you’ve gone over)
Dave dances on the couch to my dance machine. I generate some L2.0 ideas with his generator. Seems fair.
December 10th, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
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I’m only babysitting the Australian Libraries Building until someone else takes it on (…anyone??….anyone??)…I just don’t have time…..but I must admit this morning was pretty cool.
(BEGIN namedrop)
I was hanging out with people who write some of my favourite biblioblogs. I discussed leopard skin couches with Paul and Richard who write Panlibus. I gave a dance animation to Michael Stephens who is, well, MICHAEL STEPHENS, and writes Tame the Web. I walked with Dave from Dave Pattern’s weblog to the auditorium and watched him hover above wearing neon green socks.
(END namedrop)
Stephen Mandelbrot (Michael Stephens) is hovering to the left of the stage.
It was the official Welcome and Opening of Cybrary City by the Mayor, TalisPaul Fossil (Dr Paul Miler). I arrived a few minutes early and was disappointed that there were only about 4 of us….but then…people mushroomed up all over the auditorium. It took about 5 minutes for everyone to take their seats, as we all kept sitting on each other, or accidentally on the ground or facing backwards.
After demanding (and getting) a chain and a cat, Paul told us they are sponsering the island to see what librarians can do when given time, space and resources in Virtual Reality. They will be starting a “city council” group in the New Year and holding “office hours” in the tall Talis building.
Lorelei Junot was as always energetic and informative as she told us more details of the project. The auditorium and meeting rooms are available for any library who wants to experiment.
Second Life crashed for me just as they were doing a group photo on stage, so I missed out. I suspect a few will appear on Flickr (like this one) before long
How we ended the event. The dance machine will be at the Australian Libraries party next week.
December 7th, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
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interesting article in the Guardian about a guy doing a PHD on Second Life. Snippet below…..
Real life crashes into Second Life’s digital idyll
Aleks Krotoski
Thursday November 30, 2006
It was three weeks ago that my virtual world disintegrated. I had been struggling with a digital littering problem in my Social Simulation Research Lab and I wanted to automate the cleanup process. As the home of my PhD research is the virtual world of Second Life, I need to ensure that my online space looks professional and tidy so any potential participants who visit will instantly recognise my good intentions. I’d spent days lining up little planks of wood, straightening out the interactive books on the shelves and placing the windows just so. All that I needed to do, I was assured, was flick a little switch and foreign objects would be removed. I flicked. Then everything disappeared…….
December 6th, 2006
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sparkle | Uncategorized |
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I quickly get bored and exit when I don’t find anyone in SL.
Tonight, however, I ended up sitting around a table at the Kansas State Library Virtual branch, chatting with two librarians who were both giving tours to rooms full of people in RL. Rocky is a librarian from Kansas. Cyberbob is a librarian at a technical library in Denmark.
We discussed the possibility of somehow integrating SFX into a SL library building to create a kind of reading room. I don’t understand enough about SFX to know whether that would work. I mentioned that I want to find out how the Medical Library at Healthinfo Island has installed a health info google CSE as a service. They consider it a breakthrough that they didn’t need to use the HUD. No idea what the HUD is and why it’s a breakthrough, but I intend to find out.
December 6th, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
6 comments
Have any libraries used machinima to promote a service or conduct training?
I became aware of machinima recently, as friends are part of a new series, Frank and Dale based on Company of Heroes.
Some further discussion of machinima is at the Rambling Librarian.
December 3rd, 2006
Posted by
Fiona | Uncategorized |
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Is anyone interested in meeting up in SL at the Australian libraries building to experiment with what we’ll do for the LINTy party on 13th December? Everyone welcome.
I’m thinking of :
- Wednesday 6 December
- 6pm - 8pm Western Australian time….I believe this is 8pm - 10pm Eastern States time, as we are now on daylight savings.
Haypatia made the most wonderful avenue of torches outside the Australian Libraries building last week. I’ve found some sparklers and whistles. Wear them on your av. and you randomly blow the whistle. Funny to watch.
.
I’d like to experiment with food and drink, as some alcoholic beverages can make your av. fall over and do sillly things. We have a disco dance floor we can put out also. I don’t know how to dance yet. I’d like to check out boring old prim limits too.
By the way, does anyone know anything about the Model T Ford that was parked outside the buidling this morning?
December 3rd, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
2 comments
Just joined a whole bunch of librarians on a tour of Info Island led by Lorelei Junot.
Some interesting factettes:
- On the opening day for Info Island, the number of visitors was 16 000.
- On an average day, they get 4000-6000 visitors. I find that astounding.
- A non-profit island like Cybrary City costs USD890 to purchase
- A non-profit island costs USD150 per month to run
- Visitors to SL are 50-60% from US. Many of the others are from Canada or Europe.
- More international visitors came when they stopped taking cell phone numbers and credit cards at signup.
December 2nd, 2006
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Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
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