ACRL-VWIG & ALA Virtual Communities in Libraries Program

January 15, 2017  CVL Auditorium in Second Life 12:00pm SLT

 The Future of Librarians in Virtual Worlds (Metaverse Libraries)

presented by:

 Dr. Valerie Hill (Valibrarian)
and
Dr. Marie Vans (Amavans Lapis), Director of the InWorldz Community Library


 

For the January 2017 ACRL-VWIG Program, Dr. Valerie Hill and Dr. Marie Vans met with a large group of librarians and educators to provide an overview of the activities of the Community Virtual Library in Second Life and in other virtual worlds.

Val and Marie addressed some of the obstacles educators have using Second Life for classes (steep learning curve, and expense for example), but pointed out that virtual worlds still have great potential for providing avenues for global learning, networking and collaboration.  Most of their presentation focused on the future of Virtual Worlds and specifically on the activities of the Community Virtual Libraries which are aimed at fostering the use of virtual worlds for education.

Dr. Marie Vans (Amavans Lapis) andDr. Valerie Hill (Valibrarian)

Both speakers pointed out that there are as many different communities of users in virtual worlds as there are different virtual worlds.  They emphasized that because of its' popularity, its' advanced level of development and the rich collaborative environment it offers, Second Life continues to be the major venue for those interested in exploring the educational uses of virtual worlds.  While true for the foreseeable future, the Community Virtual Library has begun to focus its' activities on providing information that would help users learn about other virtual spaces.  Toward this end, the CVL has created the "Hypergrid Resource Center".

The Hypergrid Resource Center Building in Second Life

The goal of this center is to help people learn about other virtual spaces and the activities of educators and librarians working in these virtual communities.  The Center aims to help foster collaboration and networking among librarians and educators by providing them with information about other virtual worlds and on the activities of the community of users working in them.
 
To this end, the CVL has begun offering programs and developing in-world resources that highlight the distinct and different advantages each virtual world has as well as their unique community of users.

The focus for the Community Virtual Library has broadened to include not just providing information about Second Life and the activities of educators there, but also to collaborate as a "community of interest".  This allows real learning and sharing of information to take place.  Librarians can serve as community resources, people skilled at providing information about other virtual worlds to educators.  In doing so, they can connect users interested in virtual worlds with different virtual communities just as they currently connect library users with various meta-resources.

The speakers pointed out that other virtual worlds such as Kitely, InWorldz, and OpenSimulator offer some advantages not found in Second Life.  In addition to establishing "branches" of the Community Virtual Library in other metaverses, they also offer programs which highlight the strengths of these different virtual worlds.

The Community Virtual Library branch in Kitley

A CVL program which explored InWorldz, a virtual world which has become a nexus for artists and builders.

A display of interactive Library resources help supplement the InWorldz artists progam.

 Kitely offers a different operating model where virtual resources are less expensive and more readily available to users

The speakers concluded their presentation by examining ways that librarians and educators can be involved in the outreach effort of the Community Virtual Library to help encourage the use of other virtual worlds.  These include:

-Volunteering to provide office hours in-world at the CVL Reference desk in Second Life to help users

- Assisting in the creation of info resources on other virtual worlds for the Hypergrid Resource Center

-Working with CVL librarians educators to help network with professionals in other virtual worlds

-Helping to plan and conduct programs, exhibits and speakers for CVL programs

-Helping to  create and update CVL metaliteracy resources 

-Assisting with writing activities and contests (such as the annual CVL Poetry Contest)

-Volunteering to help update current CVL database-lists such as the list of educational places in Second Life

The speakers concluded by pointing out that virtual worlds still hold far more potential for educators than the coming wave of virtual reality headsets because they allow interaction, networking and collaboration between users while VR headsets work only in isolation and do not allow users to interact with anyone else.