About Kathryn Greenhill
- Personal Blog:
- http://librariansmatter.com
- Profile:
Posts by Kathryn Greenhill:
I’m giving a paper about Second Life Librarianship for the VALA conference this Tuesday. I’m showing a couple of little movies I’ve made of Info Island and the Australian Libraries Building that I’ll link to when I’ve added sound.
Here’s the details
Tuesday 5 February 2008 1120 - 1150
CONCURRENT SESSION 1: Library 2.0
Kathryn Greenhill, Murdoch University, WA
Do we remove all the walls? Second Life librarianship
Over five hundred librarians worldwide are experimenting with providing library services in the Multi User Virtual Environment (MUVE) called Second Life including a small group of Australian librarians who constructed the Australian Libraries Building. This paper describes the interface and capabilities of a MUVE, the evolution of the Australian Libraries Building and the library objects built and scripted within it. It suggests some professional advantages for librarians who experiment within Second Life and the technical and managerial considerations of setting up a library presence there. It concludes by describing how Second Life library services have evolved as librarians better understood the potential of the MUVE interface.
January 30th, 2008
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
one comment
The entire library community knows about this bit:
The Librarians, is a new six-part comedy series from the ABC, based around the highly-strung head librarian of an outer suburban Melbourne library. This new social satire premieres on Wednesday October 31 at 9.30pm. You can also watch it online at abc.net.au/tv/librarians from 10:00pm.
But did you know that on Thursday night, you can chat about the show with other librarians on ABC Island in Second Life?
In conjunction with the ABC, Emerald Dumont - a librarian avatar from the Australian Libraries Building - will host a discussion of the show in the ABC Auditorium on ABC Island. Do we really look like that? What would you have added? What do you think will happen? Would other professions be having this discussion if the show was called “The Teachers” or “The Doctors”?
Brush off you avatar, or follow this guide to create a new one, and join in.
DATE: Thursday November 1st
TIME: 7:30pm AEDST, 5:30pm (WA Daylight savings) , 1:30am SL time (PDT)
PLACE: ABC Auditorium , ABC Island in SL
(If you are logged into Second Life, click on this SLURL to get there: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ABC%20Island/128/75/24)
Instant message Emerald Dumont if you need a Teleport to the event, or contact her close friend Kathryn Greenhill for further information ( kathryn.greenhill at gmail dot com)
October 26th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
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
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
Last night around 7pm in Western Australia I was:
- in Second Life
- on ABC Island
- watching a streamed broadcast of an ABC Four Corners program about Second Life, YouOnly Live Twice
- waiting one and a half hours for the program to be broadcast on my tele
- sitting next to some people who were watching the program being broadcast on their tele.
- rather confused about where I was, what time it was, where the Four Corners program was, and when it was being broadcast.
- feeling thrilled to be part of an experiment and wondering where it will all lead.
March 20th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
Usually I don’t repost information that you can already find on the Second Life Libraries google group or Infoisland.com, but this one looked like a lot of fun. The time translates to 11am Friday March 16th for Perth people.
Let the Buzz Begin! Library 3.0 -
This is a weekly series of programs for librarians interested in talking about Library 3.0/Library 3-D. Tom Peters will open the eries on Thursday March 15 at 6 pm sl in the Cybrary City 2 open air auditorium. These are open mike. Each presenter will talk for 15-20 minutes on their view of Library 3.0 and then lead a discussion on the topic. Anyone interested in sharing their thoughts can attend and can in fact lead a discussion.
If you would likek to lead a discussion (we will try to space them throughout the timezones), please email Lori Bell (lbell at alliancelibrarysystem.com ) with some dates you are available and times and we will set these up. NMC has had great success with their teacher’s buzz. Us library folk need to join in.
March 6th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
The slides from my talk about Second Life and libraries at the National Library, 14th February are up at slideshare.net: Flying Librarians of Oz:What’s all the fuss about Second Life and what’s it got to do with libraries?.
Now - with new bonus features. It includes a series of slides with quotes from other librarians about the advantages of having a Second Life. It also includes my backup snapshots of the Australian Libraries Building.
February 23rd, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
2 comments
Often new visitors to the Australian Libraries Building will ask “how can I make money in Second Life?”.
Well, now I have an answer…”spend an hour and a half dancing with a mob of librarians in PJS and bunny splippers, and be voted as having the best female costume”. There’s 500Linden dollars for that one. Thanks if you voted.
Congratulations also to Rocky “Harley Fashionista” Vallejo, best dressed male.
Another snap from the evening. Note that Minnie Mouse in the front was tallying the votes, so ineligible.
February 10th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
2 comments
Cybrary City has a party spot near the water and it is used every second Friday by a bunch of colourful dancing library avatars. The 1980’s radio station is streamed in as the music.
It’s a great way to meet other Second Life Librarians informally and get a feel for the bunch. About 30 - 50 turn up.
The parties are held at 7pm Friday Second Life time, which converts to 12 noon Saturday Western Australian time. This week (Saturday 10 February) is a Pyjama party. I’m afraid I couldn’t resist the bunny slippers.
February 10th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
Law librarian, James G Mills, now “gets” Second Life. He made a podcast while talking on Skype to Meg Kribble (whose Second Life name is Ann Idler). She gave him a guided tour of libraries and more in Second Life. If you are new to Second Life, it’s great to hear someone asking the questions you would. About a third of the way into the podcast, Ann shows him around the Australian Libraries building.
Here’s some details….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Check This Out! Episode 059: I Finally Get Second Life!
Monday, February 5, 2007
Playing time: 58:33
February 7th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
The library archipelago now consists of 13 islands: 8 Info Islands and 5 partners. An island is equivalent to about 65 500m2 and costs roughly USD900 to purchase and USD150 in monthly costs.
Three new islands have been announced:
ALA/Arts Island - half for the American Library Association and half for a replica European Opera house
Imagination Island. Half is Vendor Ville for vendors to share their wares. The other half, Rachelville, sounds very special indeed. Rachelville is donated by a couple in memory of their little girl, Rachel. It “will be a magical place with displays, environments, and experiments related to children’s literature and people who want to know more about it”.
Cybrary City 2 Libraries can purchase space here for between USD300 - USD500 per year, depending on the size of the plot. Plots are larger than in Cybrary City 1. The big attraction I see is that your neighbours would all be librarians and you would benefit from networking with them and be located on the Information Archipelago. I’d love to see a few Australian Libraries there. (I can dream). If your library is interested, contact Lori Bell ( lbell at alliancelibrarysystem.com) or Lorelei Junot in Second Life.
February 6th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
There was a Second Life librarians’ staff meeting around noon our time today on Info Island. The minutes are here.
There is a lot happening, but a few things stood out for me:
- HVX Silverstar is creating a machinima library, to include a basic “how to”.
- Librarians will be helping with a reconstruction of the New York Public Library in the 1920’s.
- An island abutting Info Island is being developed by the University of California’s first person employed to work full time on Second Life projects. He’ll be helped by eight grad students.
- Four tours are planned this week..details on the calendar, here.
- Pyjama party for libraryfolk next Friday night, 7pm at TX950 on Cybrary City. (This is usually around 12 noon Saturday Perth time)
- There are lots of displays in the library archipeligo soon, and lots of presentations in the Real World.
February 6th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
one comment
I like having the title “Australian” above my head, so I joined the “Australians” SL group. I left the group last night after my chat box was flooded with IM’s from the group about partying and fun. Bah humbug - I was trying to have a conversation and all they wanted to do was party.
The last couple of days I’ve been hanging out and not partying with some other Australians.
I visited Terra Incognita island from the University of Southern Queensland last night, and spent some time talking to creator Decka Mah, whose alter ego Lindy McKeown is working on virtual learning environments for her PhD. She used to be a teacher-librarian. She’s working with a team, and she showed me lots of cool toys - but my favourite is the blog sign. You click on the sign and then type text into the chat window. It is then automatically posted to the Terra Incognita blog at blogspot. Works for any blog which can have posts submitted via email. I’m planning to go back and take the guided tour capsule around the island in the next couple of days.
Graham Sabre and Lowell Cremone from the SLOZ (Australia’s Second Life News Source) blog visited the library a couple of days ago. Today their blog features an article all about the Australian Libraries Building, with a cheesy snap of Emerald Dumont in front of ……what is it? Visit the remodelled library and find out.
February 1st, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
2 comments
MMOs are Massively Multiplayer Online Games. For an MLIS class, library student Timothy Greig looked at how these could relate to a Digital Library. He’s posted the slides and notes to Flickr. He’s from Christchurch in New Zealand.
It’s called What can digital libraries learn from Massively Multiplayer Online Games and pays particular attention to World of Warcraft. He gives tips about how a MMO Digital Library could use the interface style from a virtual world. I particularly liked his suggestion that avatars of more experienced library users could give tips on using the library to less experienced ones.
Found via Tame the Web
January 25th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
Remember way back…before gui browsers… when the Australian Broadcasting Corporation only had a couple of pages on its Internet site? (It looked nothing like the earliest archived page I can find - 23 October 1996) .
When I was first trying to get libraries interested in this new-Internet-thingy, I would always show the ABC web page, and the Library of Congress page - partly because there wasn’t much else outside univeristies, and partly for the gravitas it added to the idea of the Internet.
Well..last night I visited the brand new ABC Island (you can visit if you are a member of the ABC Friends group in SL). It’s in the same neighbourhood as the Australian Film Television and Radio School’s AFTRS’ Virtual Island. I sat with joKay Wollongong around an outback fire on ochre ground, contemplating the bare landscape. In the picture, you can see an RSS feed of the latest news headlines in the ground, plus the tour pod, showing that 156 tours have been made in the last day.
Later I took a tour of the island. It gave a running commentary of what is planned for the terrain… an Underground section for emerging bands, a place for building competitions, storefronts for various ABC departments, plus - of course -a place where you can receive ABC TV and radio.
More information is at Second Life Insider. Abi Goldflake (SL name I hope), who is co-ordinating the project is discussing it with interested Australians here on the SLOz forum. No press release yet - I think they are wisely waiting until there is more there.
I hate it when people cut big wads of a quote into blog posts, but I think it’s worth it for Abi’s outline of how ABC Island fits in with the ABC charter:
Under the ABC Charter our functions are:- ‘to provide within Australia innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services’ (and broadcasting is now taken to include all new media services too) - we see SL as very innovative and a real opportunity to do something new and engaging for our audiences
- ‘broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain and reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community’ - this is why we want our island to have a strong Australian feel and to be a place where Australians can come and find fun things to do which are distinctively Australian
- ‘broadcasting programs of an educational nature’ - this is where the information/education side might come in. I take Wolfie’s point about the Teen Grid (that’s perhaps a separate project for us) but in general the ABC attempts to provide content which educates audiences in a broad way.
- ‘encourage awareness of Australia and an international understanding of Australian attitudes on world affairs’ - SL is perfect for this - there is such a large international user base (particularly from the US at this stage) and there is real potential to provide a showcase for Australian talent, content and issues.
- ‘to encourage and promote the musical, dramatic and other performing arts in Australia’ - again, the creativity of SL means there is real potential for the ABC to provide innovative musical and artistic content - whether it’s existing ABC content presented in a new way, or, more likely, content created by SL residents
So I think the Charter gives us a great starting point for some of the things we can do in SL. If you wanted to sum up our objective I’d say it is to develop a sense of Australian community based around content, creativity and innovation for Australian and international visitors to the ABC island.
January 21st, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
Second Life is a clunky and crude kind of world, compared to most games. It is, however, a good place to learn how a library can “be” in a virtual world. We are still working out how to balance opening up access to our virtual services with appearing “real”. Take doors, for example.
During a building move, the doors accidentally weren’t put back on a building in Cybrary City. The result? People felt more welcome and there were more visitors.
I asked Abbey Zenith to take the front doors off the Australian Libraries building, but the back ones are still on. I’d be interested to know what people think- put the front doors back on, take back doors off, keep as is? Here’s a picture, which is really just an excuse to show off my new look avatar.
January 20th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
3 comments
Mparntwe Gruntled has joined. In one of those typical SL moments, on his first visit he sat behind a deserted reference desk on Info Island…maybe to take a snapshot….and then answered query when someone materialised.
January 12th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
2 comments
Look out for Mark Hitchcock and Liberty Box next time you are inworld. They are very new but learning fast. Mark is already jumping about and even managed to crack up laughing. Many of you won’t have yet met Jemminy Platypus or HeyJude Jenns who joined the group about three weeks or so ago.
By the way, what is happening with changing the title from Ozlibber to Ozlibrarian? As Hypatia pointed out, people keep thinking we are affiliated with the Liberal party or “women’s lib” (not that feminism has been called that for over 20 years, but still…). I’ll see whether I can create a new role within the group and give that a new title, but I think it may need to be done by snail.
January 12th, 2007
Posted by
Kathryn Greenhill | Uncategorized |
no comments
