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.

 ACRL-VWIG & ALA Virtual Communities in Libraries Program

August 21, 2016

 CVL Auditorium in Second Life 12:00pm SLT

Kevin Feenan (Phelan Corrimal in Second Life), President of Rockcliffe University Consortium

The Rockcliffe Library Network Ten Years in Second Life 

 

Kevin Feenan (Phelan Corrimal)

For the August ACRL-VWIG Program, Kevin Feenan, President of the Rockcliffe University Consortium provided an overview of the history and recent activities of the Rockcliffe Library Network within Second Life.  This organization has been active in Second Life for 10 years.  The library network started out in 2006 as a single site which served as a training and development resource center for Rockcliffe members in Second Life.  Since then it has progressively expanded its efforts to support educational/research projects by helping to make open-access publications and data available via the internet and mobile technologies to all researchers.  Along the way it has encouraged and promoted co-operation among the community of educators and librarians involved in immersive environments, especially Second Life.

The August program was one of the best attended with 25 librarians and educators from across the U.S.

The MediaWiki has had over 300,000 requests for access in the past year.  It cross references content in virtual worlds.

 Other activities include the development of the "MediaWiki".  This wiki focuses on resources related to immersive environments including articles, bibliographies, a curated collection of research tools, and other links to information related to knowledge emergence using virtual collaborative environments. 

The newly expanded Rockcliffe Library in Second Life

The Rockcliffe Library provides access to Resources such as open access e-journals and other online resources

 The Second Life Library on the campus of Rockcliffe University has recently expanded in size to cover half a region.  The library now includes 5 major subject areas; Business & Economics, Law, Social Sciences, Fine Arts, Science and the Humanities.  Multiple Reference areas with information kiosks provide researcher with access to e-journals and other open access, electronic resources.  

Reference areas include Science, the Arts, Education, Business and the Humanities.

Today the Rockcliffe Library Network, along with the Community Virtual Library,  has become one of the most vital and supportive outposts for those currently active in virtual worlds.  Future plans include an expansion to the Avacon Region of the Opensim Grid, where a library occupying 4 sims has been created.  The Rockcliffe Library Network has also submitted an application to ALA to become a registered ALA library.  

ACRL-Virtual Worlds Interest Group Summer 2016 Programs

ACRL-Virtual Worlds Interest Group Summer 2016 Programs

  

ACRL-VWIG May 2016 Program

Joint session with ALA Virtual Communities in Libraries MIG

 Sunday May 15^th 2016  12-1:30 pm SLT - CVL Auditorium

The Virtual Pioneers: Andrew Wheelock

 

For its’ first program of the summer, Spiff Whitfield met with the ACRL-VWIG to discuss immersive learning environments in Second Life.  Specifically he presented on the activities of the “Virtual Pioneers”.  This group of educators who explore virtual worlds seeking out immersive learning opportunities.  

 

The Virtual Pioneers started as small group of Social Studies educators in 2007.  From there it has branched out to include history minded people from around the world.  The presentation by Andrew Wheelock highlighted the journey of the Virtual Pioneers from its humble beginnings to its present day incarnation of tours and meetings aimed at understanding history and culture from around the world.  The presentation also showcased some of the work that Virtual Pioneer educators have done in the K-12 realm.

The Three Faces of Andrew Wheelock

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ACRL-VWIG June 2016 Program

Joint session with ALA Virtual Communities in Libraries MIG

Sunday June 19, 2016  12-1:30 SLT – CVL Auditorium

Inworldz & Kitely: Librarianship in Alternative Virtual Worlds : Marie Vans

For the June program, Marie Vans shared a presentation on virtual worlds beyond Second Life, “Inworldz & Kitely: Librarianship in Alternative Virtual Worlds”. Marie Vans (Amvans Lapis in Second Life) is the director of the Community Virtual Library in Inworldz and owner of STEM4Girls island Kitely.   Marie has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Colorado State University. Marie talked about  her work in the virtual worlds Inworldz and Kitely.  She presented her experiences using STEM island in Kitely as examples of cheaper alternatives to Second Life for providing library and educational services. The presentation compared these virtual worlds to Second Life in terms of cost, prims, and other important features.

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ACRL-VWIG July 2016 Program

Joint session with ALA Virtual Communities in Libraries MIG

Sunday July  17, 2016  12-1:30 SLT – CVL Auditorium

“Supporting a Course with a Virtual World Library” with Dr. Nancy Zingrone

Nancy Zingrone of the AZIRE Library & Learning Center

 

July’s program was presented by Nancy Zingorne (Maggie Laraimore in Second Life).  Nancy has a PhD in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and she talked about her experience designing, implementing and running a virtual world library for the Alvardo Zingrone Institute for Research and Education within the Chilbo Community/region of Second Life.  The AZIRE Library and Learning Center was designed  to support a MOOC on research in Parapsychology she and her husband are doing online.  She described their experience setting up a learning center in world the purpose of which was to show that real scientific research is being done about Parapsychology.

Slides on the program can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/NanZingrone/supporting-a-course-with-a-virtual-library-the-paramooc-series

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Thanks to Val Librarian Gregg for her help putting this together.