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Virtual World Librarianship course

If you really want to know about Second Life Librarianship, then this six week online course may be for you. It does run at about 1am on Saturdays, our time..but apart from that…

Virtual World Librarianship – Your Second Life

“Avatars! Linden Dollars! Librarianship!

Librarianship? What ARE they talking about?

To discover how avatars, Linden dollars, and librarianship relate to one another, come join us in a continuing education course on librarianship in the virtual world of Second Life. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents, including real life librarians on Info Island.

The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Alliance Library System of Illinois have partnered to offer a six week online (in Second Life) course to introduce you to libraries and information services in a virtual world. The course starts May 25 and is open to all library and information professionals.

A continuing education course presented by the Illinois Alliance Library System and GSLIS
Dates: May 25, June 1, 8, 15, July 6 and 13
Online synchronous times: Fridays, 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Location: Info Island, Second Life
Cost: $200
Instructors: Kitty Pope, Lori Bell, Tom Peters, Rhonda Trueman, Barbara Galik

Week One: Introduction to Libraries in Virtual Worlds
Week Two: Second Life 101
Week Three: Collections, Resources, and Exhibits in Virtual Environment
Week Four: Reference and Information Services in Virtual Worlds
Week Five: Managing and Working in a Virtual Library or Department
Week Six: Skills Needed by 21st Century Librarians in Virtual Worlds

For additional information and to register, visit: http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/programs/cpd/Second_Life.html or contact Marianne Steadley (Steadley@uiuc.edu), Continuing Professional Development Program Director, GSLIS

April 23rd, 2007 Posted by Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized | no comments

Homegrown book discussion

Usually if people ask me if I’ll run a book discussion, I fly away as fast as my wings can carry me…but now I’m signed up to lead one about On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I’ve been sucked right in (or should I say, “engaged by”) the new Book Flower bed in the Readers’ Garden on Cybrary City II (teleport there now).

Princess Ivory and Alphonsus Peck have been working on the Readers’ Garden together. Last night I helped him test drive the new Book Flower garden.

To play, you click on the flower bed controller next to the bed. You can select a bush of irises, pansies or cosmos, which is planted out in the garden bed for you to find. When you find it, you click on it and are prompted for the title, author and description of the book you’d like to discuss.

Other people can now come to the garden, see your flower and click on it to register their interest in discussing the book too. If you have entered your email address, then you will be notified by email when someone shows interest.

So now, having sown the seeds of the idea, I’m waiting for interest to bloom and then I’ll set a suggested date and time for the discussion. Simple, engaging and fun. We’ve come a long way from the first Second Life library collections that just involved links to external sites from objects inworld.

April 1st, 2007 Posted by Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized | no comments