Off the Beaten Track in Second Life

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Presenter: John Kirriemuir (Silversprite Consulting)

Description: A growing number of "real world" organisations, such as libraries, colleges, embassies, and news media, have established a "presence" in Second Life. These range from small buildings, to outdoor conferences and whole islands. Many sectors have highly publicised areas on the grid which provide an additional point of contact, or presence, for a real-world library organisation.

This presentation, part of an ongoing survey, covers a sample of some of these libraries that are "off the beaten track". The presentation looks at attributes of these libraries, including:

  • The point of the library. Why was it set up? Who is or was the target audience?
  • The functionality of the library structure.
  • The resource (person hours) needed to develop it, and whether this was official work time or self/hobby time.
  • Any funding source, or official sanction; for example, was the State Library of Kansas branch in SL officially sanctioned by the management of Kansas library in the real world?
  • How "busy" has the structure or facility been, e.g. for a meeting space, how many meetings have taken place and how many people have attended?
  • Have there been real-world impacts, e.g. a person started using a library in the real world because they encountered it in SL?

This work is highly related to a similar survey undertaken of Second Life development activities in the UK Higher and Further education sector. This particular survey has resulted in a "snapshot" report [1], showing that there is active development on the grid by academics in an unexpectedly large number of UK universities and colleges - many of these, also, "off the beaten track".

The presentation will attempt to draw some comparisons between Second Life developments in the two surveys.

The research work underlying this presentation is partially funded by The Eduserv Foundation.

Intended Audiences:

  • Pretty much any librarian

at:

  • Any type of library


Listen to an MP3 audio file of this session (88MB, 1:35:11, combined with the Libraries Get a Second Life session)

The presentation (32 slide Powerpoint) is downloadable from Slideshare.

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