I’m gobsmacked! I just popped into Cybrary City in Second Life for a visit before bed, and have come out with a building for all Australian Libraries to share. Ooops.
.
Cybrary City is an island sponsered by Talis and administered by the Alliance Library System. It provides free buildings for libraries for a year, in return for a couple of hours staffing per week. It was created last week, and I was checking out the island because I’d blogged about how great I think the initiative is.
I ran into Lorelei Junot from Alliance, and while following up CW’s email to her about maybe holding a LINT Christmas party in Second Life, she offered me an entire building for all Australian libraries. Who was I to refuse? (or accept, for that matter - but I was so stunned, that I did.)
A Second Life presence is no small thing. IBM plans on investing $10 million in Second Life to set up a secure place where they can hold meetings with their clients. Schools, universities and companies are conducting business there. According to the Wikipedia Entry for Second Life:
Linden Lab has stated that the Second Life economy generated US$3,596,674 in economic activity during the month of September 2005.[22] According to a September 2006 Popular Science article, Second Life, through currency trading, shopping and land sales, has a GDP of $64 Million.[23]
The building is now empty, but we can furnish it. While I’m thrilled and excited to be part of the project, I have no time to run it. I have been dreaming about the possibilities, and let my imagination run riot…Here’s some ideas about how we could use the building:
- A meeting place for Australian library folk who want to know about Second Life.
- If a library sees its role as educating their clients about Virtual Worlds, this could be a good place to hold a class.
- ALIA could hold section meetings in the SL building, without people needing to physically gather.
- National Library could create a display of some of the Flickr Picture Australia photos.
- Libraries Australia (or any other catalogue) could have a searchable portal in the building.
- As a place to virtually host library folk from other countries
- As a student project in a library school..create the furtniture, mash up something amazing, staff an Australian reference desk
- A venue for Australian writers to give talks.
- A place for displays like Childrens’ Book Week finalists.
- Cybrary City has an auditorium and facility for conferencing, so seminars and presentations could be held there.
- A place to host Australian Library Week events.
We are not yet obliged to do 2 hours a week service, as we are still finding our feet. If any organisation would like to take on ownership of the project, or was planning to apply for a spot in Cybrary City anyhow, I’m happy to hand it over. I can co-ordinate temporarily, but would love to see someone else run with it.
The double storey building is at Second Life 207, 68, 23. I’d love to know of any other Australian librarians in Second Life…whether you are interested in the building or not. Please leave a comment here, or email my avatar. User: Emerald.Dumont Domain: gmail.com
UPDATE 4 Dec 2006: Cybrary City and Info Islands were moved last week after porn shops bought out the surrounding lands. The new co-ordinates are: Cybrary City 210,70,24. Here’s the SLURL, so you can Teleport there now
Feed
November 14, 2006 at 05:49
Thanks Kathryn
For the record, I’m Paradoxa Kurrajong. Anyone else?
Oh, and I guess this means we now have a venue for a Christmas ‘do’!
November 14, 2006 at 07:24
Fantastic. I will have to find some time to get a second life. And just managing a first life was challenging!
November 14, 2006 at 10:53
Hmmmm…I’ve been keeping an eye out for projects once NLS2006 is out of the way. Looks like I can kill two birds with one stone: a chance to start experimenting with Second Life, and a building to do it in
First option post NLS2006 will be to upgrade my bandwidth in anticipation.
November 14, 2006 at 11:03
CW - Definitely somewhere for the Christmas “do”.
Peta - Well, no-one’s ever given me a building in RL before, so maybe it’s a bit easier to manage.
snail - Great! My Shuttle Zen has limited expansion options, so I’ve borrowed one of the only two graphics cards that will do the job for SL. It does it very slooowly, so I’ve ordered the other kind online. I guess SL is having an economic effect for us both in RL.
November 14, 2006 at 12:46
Oh, WOW. The timing of this is pretty amazing - I’ve just been asked to do some reasearch involving things like Second Life. What an excellent place to start!!
November 15, 2006 at 08:01
I’m Midjen Zauberflote and am currently getting lost in Cybrary City, as the system doesn’t seem to accept the nav points given above … typical. I get lost in real cities, and now I get lost in virtual ones …
Am looking boring because I wanted to find the library even before putting on my face
Never found an excuse for online “gaming” at work before!!
Better go do some non-virtual-world-related research now though …
November 28, 2006 at 14:57
All my dreams have come true!! Brilliant as this SecondLife is on my research list for 2007. Very cool!
November 28, 2006 at 15:00
And I just might be interested in taking this on, or helping out. Email me at [email protected].
November 28, 2006 at 16:06
Judy, what is your Second Life name? I don’t know if we have listed your name already in our list of SL library folks?
December 4, 2006 at 13:33
Oh, I was slow to pick this up. May I trouble you to send me a teleport or something in SL? My SL avatar goes by the name of “IvanChew Link”.
Or maybe you could add the Surl in your post.
December 4, 2006 at 19:19
Ivan, feel free to use our slurl. You might also like to keep an eye on our blog dedicated to SL and other online worlds: it’s virtual lint.
December 10, 2006 at 19:16
Sorry, missed getting back to you. My SL name is Heyjude Jenns. No I am not listed, I have just been wandering around SL on my own, and not getting involved at this stage. Does anyone want to chat with me about managing the space? I have resources that we can use. I’ll get quite involved next year…have had other projects that needed to be completed this year.
December 10, 2006 at 19:20
By the way - I love some of the suggestions you came up with Kathryn! I’m from the K-12 sector, and have 77 school libraries to introduce to SL!! I particularly want to explore school learning possibilities in SL - hence my offer to help in some way with the building - I’m keen to explore learning spaces in SL.
December 10, 2006 at 19:35
Hi Jude. I just emailed you. I have a contact in SL who is from the K-12 sector who I could introduce you to if you were interested. She probably knows heaps more people in the sector also.
We’d love your help..and hope to see you at the party on the 13th..if not before in SL
December 31, 2006 at 07:22
Good luck with this! Have linked to this post from my site…
Lowell
January 25, 2007 at 23:55
i don’t know people find so attractive a mmorpg like wow when thre are out there so many fantasy mmorpgs better some are even free like rappelz or Phantasy Star Universe. But even some games like conquer online with crapy graphics and buggy game play have some success this day while some developers work their a**** to come with original things like scifi mmorpgs eg: citizen zero that have slow chances on taking a slice from the market. while this have been said you may consider what game you may wanna start playing cause there are full lists on the net that you may want to consult