Personal Reflections (14)

Ah, the end of term, when a young student's thoughts turn to evaluation.

I think that overall this has been a fairly successful course. I've really enjoyed the blogging aspect of it-- not only maintaining my own snazzy blog, but also getting the chance to read everyone else's. This was my first distance education course ever, and, surprisingly, I found that I really missed the class discussion. I'm not Chatty McTalksALot, but I think that having an opportunity to hear how your classmates interpreted the various readings is pretty valuable. If we hadn't had the blogs to keep track of each other, this would have been a much, much different course. I have missed lectures a little (I know-- shocking). One of the great advantages of this program has been the that we have practicing librarians teaching us-- and I've missed that aspect of in-class courses.

... and now, the rundown of technologies:

What I Will Keep Using: del.icio.us facebook, wikis

I really like del.icio.us, which (for me, personally) seems to have a role very different from that of my favorites. I tend to use del.icio.us for interesting articles, rather than interesting sites. The social/public nature of it does make me a little uncomfortable, so I think anything particularly scandelous will still go in my favorites. I also really like that all I have to go is hit the little button my tool bar.

I still don't like Facebook. I still think that if you're the type of person to maintain meaningful connections, you'll maintain them with or without this kind of network. It makes me uncomfortable to find pictures of myself on my friend's pages, tagged off of pages of people I haven't spoken to in six years. It makes me feel sad and hurt if my friends' connections have erased me from our shared history (if they became “friends” through Facebook before I joined, even though they have absolutely nothing in common except me). But, uh, sadly, I will keep Facebook, because everyone has it. What? Is that a cliff ahead of me? Woo hoo!

I don't have a lot to say about wikis-- I think they're useful. I've half-built one for work. I'm glad I got to learn about them!

What I am on the Fence About: my blog

I have become quite fond of my little blog, and I am reluctant to abandon it. However, I don't know if I have the audience or focus needed to continue it. Most of the blogs which I read have a specific audience and are hooked into an online community of sorts (ie, blogs about books, blogs about politics). My book-reading, cheese-eating, nomadic ways are only interesting to a small number of people-- (hi Mom!)

What I Will Most Likely Not Use After This Course: RSS, Secondlife

RSS does not appeal to me, even though I can see the logic and convienence in it. And, if I'm not a gamer by now, I am unlikely to become one. Secondlife is pretty interesting, but it's just not for me.

Best Practices (13)

My biggest challenge in this course is trying to see things from the perspective of a librarian and not a user. I visit my public library maybe twice a week, and mainly for books. I'd put myself in the lower/middle range of the library school population spectrum for technological with-it-ness, but in terms of the general population, I'm much, much higher. And I don't subscribe to my library's RSS feed or cruise their del.ic.ious page.

For me, this discipline is all about connecting people with information: I get the connections with information literacy, and the importance of understanding the technological backdrops, but for me, the most important criteria has to be: does this improve the fundamental service we offer to our patrons?

My Preliminary and Very General List of Best Practices

1. Include the targeted community in the planning and development stages of implementing social software. Make sure that what you are planning is relevant and feasible for your users, and draw on their expertise. (For example, use high school students who need to volunteer for credit and know more than you do.)

2. Make sure your use of social software is consistent with your library's mission and values-- especially in terms of privacy

3. Be accessible. I'm somewhat wary of public libraries using applications like Facebook because, while it meets students where they are, its nature is to be closed and private. It plays to the in-group. If you're not on Facebook, you're excluded, and that seems to go against the accessible nature of libraries.

4. Target your audience-- keep your focus narrow and specific (ie: Harry Potter, not Children's Literature, or Community Historical Sites, not History).

5. Use social software to compliment your services, not to revolutionize them-- especially if you are a library with a diverse (in terms of age/ ablity/ access to technology) user group.

6. Do not use social software exclusively-- if you have a Harry Potter party at your library, don't just create a facebook event for it-- also have physical posters in your library, too. Don't exclude people because their unfamiliar with a specific technology.

7. Maintain consistency between your traditional methods and your digital methods, and between print resources and your electronic resources. For example, your del.ic.ious tags should not be fundamentally different from your library's general (overview) classification scheme.

8. Constantly evaluate whether or not your new-fangled services are doing what they are supposed to: are people commenting on your blog? Is your RSS feed being used? Has your wiki been overrun by a small minority?

9. Maintain (and update!) FAQs about new technologies.

10. Do not expect students to want to friend your library. :-)

And now off to review the case studies...

Readings (12)

Virtual Worlds and Gaming

I have been “born” in Second Life, although so far I have not left Orientation Island, and my accomplishments have been limited to 1) sitting in a chair 2) making my legs longer 3) taking a torch off the wall and then putting it back again, and 4) wearing a party-hat. As is probably evident from that thrilling list, and at the risk of losing my geek cred: I am not a gamer, and have very little experience with virtual worlds. One of my former roommates used to play a lot of World of Warcraft, but all he seemed to do was run. And sometimes fly. When I tried to fly in Second Life, I bumped my head.

The readings this week focused a lot on using these kinds of games as tools for learning and teaching. Richard Van Eck's description of the Digital Native generation was a little disconcerting, especially the part where he notes that they (we?) are, “disengaged with traditional instruction.” His overview of using games like Civilization to teach students, reminded me of the time when, in junior high, my best friend and I attended a school-sponsored workshop on “military strategy and combat” that consisted of us playing Risk for two days. Good times.

I had difficulty taking this article (and this approach) seriously. Not all students will respond to this form of teaching-- and, like the criticisms of libraries joining facebook-- do your users really want to hang out with you? I agree that librarians cannot ignore gamers and virtual worlds. But I'm not sure it make sense to market services through games like Second Life—are patrons really in Second Life looking to interact with librarians and find information? Diana Oblinger's article and Ameet Doshi's article were better because they addressed specific applications and audiences.

Henry Jenkins has a number of interesting points, among them a somewhat pessimistic view of the life cycles of virtual worlds. He states that, “Second Life may outlive them all for several reasons: people feel a deeper investment in Second Life as a community.” But he also quotes danah boyd, who believes that Second Life is not web 3.0 and that we are not destined for a all-virtual/only virtual life.

In short: I, librarian-to-be agree that the rise of virtual worlds will have an impact on how people access and interact with information and that we should continue to keep abreast of these changes and (where appropriate) incorporate them into how we deliver information to our users. But, I, library-user, remain somewhat reluctant to immerse myself in them.

LIS 757 Group Project: Gaming & Virtual Worlds

by Gerry McCrae, Mike Beazley, Elise Cogo and Leah Swift

What is a Virtual World

“A virtual world is an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface. Virtual worlds are also called "digital worlds," "simulated worlds" and "MMOG's." There are many different types of virtual worlds, however there are six features all of them have in common:

1. Shared Space: the world allows many users to participate at once.
2. Graphical User Interface: the world depicts space visually, ranging in style from 2D "cartoon" imagery to more immersive 3D environments.
3. Immediacy: interaction takes place in real time.
4. Interactivity: the world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content.
5. Persistence: the world's existence continues regardless of whether individual users are logged in.
6. Socialization/Community: the world allows and encourages the formation of in-world social groups like teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc.”

Betsy Book: Virtual Worlds Review

Gaming World

As noted by Betsy Book, A gaming world, or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), is one where character-focused avatars progress through story lines and competitive events.
Some examples include Everquest, World of Warcraft and MPOGD.com

A list of virtual worlds by category can be viewed here.

Since this is a social networking class, we decided to focus on ‘Second Life’, a virtual world that has been developed for ‘community building’ rather than gaming. As noted on Wikepedia, “Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, but this description is disputed. It does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games, though it can be thought of as a game on a more basic level. It is a semi-structured virtual environment where characters undertake activities for the purpose of personal enjoyment”.

So, what exactly is ‘Second Life’?

As noted on their Website, Second Life is a 3-D world built and owned by its residents. It opened in 2003, and there are currently over 8 million residents, who are represented in the world by avatars. It is free to join, create an avatar, explore the world, meet and chat with other residents, attend meetings or social events, and use freely available tools to build and then sell things to other residents. You own the rights to anything you create. Thousands of residents are making part or all of their real life income from their Second Life Businesses.

If you wish to own land, and build on or develop the property, then you will have to pay $9.95 a month plus a ‘Land Use Fee’ which will vary depending on the size of your parcel. Once you own land, you can build a home, or business, a park, a school or anything you like. The Marketplace on Second Life “currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges”.

Residents communicate via local chat or instant messaging, and voice communication is currently in beta testing. Avatars travel the world on foot, and they can also fly and teleport. A variety of vehicles are also available, and some are free and others must be purchased by the resident who created them.

Developers and Providers

Second Life is produced by the San Francisco-based Linden Lab, whose mission is to “connect us all to an online world that advances the human condition.” (Linden Labs, “About”) Founded in 1999 by Philip Rosedale, Linden Lab runs Second Life through “a scalable server grid running Linux” and encourages open source collaboration from Second Life users. (Linden Lab “News and Events”) This places some of the onus for development upon its residents.

In 2006 Economist article, creator Philip Rosedale was quoted as saying that the inspiration for Second Life was that, “Since I was a kid, I was into using computers to simulate reality” and that Second Life would take this further by allowing users to “extend reality”. (Economist, September 2006)

Second Life is promoted by its developers as an adults-only environment, however, because of the prevalence and availability of adult transactions within the virtual world, Second Life has been accused of exposing children to inappropriate materials. Second Life does have a world specifically for teens and children, but because it relies on self-disclosure from users, this is difficult to maintain. In June 2007, the developers of Second Life announced measures that would require one-time identification that would verify age. (Brisbane Times, 2007)

In contrast to the interactive emphasis of Second Life, there is Blizzard Entertainment. Also based out of California, Blizzard Entertainment is the creator of the popular multiplayer game World of Warcraft. Unlike Linden Lab, the makers of World of Warcraft have also lent their expertise to the development of non-interactive venues, such as movies like the recent 300. (Blizzard “Company Profile”)

The technology behind Second Life

Second life functions through the interplay of both client and server based software. This means that Linden Lab maintains servers on which the virtual world “exists,” while users download and install software that interprets and presents the world on the user's computer. According to Wikipedia, the servers run a version of Debian Linux, and the client software is available on Windows platforms as well as on Mac OSX and Linux.

The world of Second Life is divided into many separate regions, each of which is often maintained by an individual server. Every object within the world can interact with any other, thanks to the physics engine Havok I. This is a piece of software that allows objects within Second Life to interact with one another realistically (for example, one avatar can push another). There are reportedly problems with this engine and there has been pressure from the user community for an engine upgrade to Havoc IV. All items in Second Life are stored in a giant database powered by MySQL, an open source database program.

Second Life has recently revealed the source code (the coding that allows the virtual world to function) for its client software, thus allowing third parties to modify the functionality of the software. Users have long been able to create their own items in the world (clothing, hairstyles, tools, props, etc.), but now programmers can actually modify the user interface to allow new funtionality within the world. As reported by Shankland for Silicon.com Linden Lab will review modifications submitted by users, and if approved, they will be added to the official version of Second Life. There are plans to release the source code for the server software as well, which would mean that third parties could conceivably operate their own version of Second Life. Perhaps we'll see Second Library somewhere down the road?

Libraries Using Second Life

The Alliance Library System started the Second Life Library (a.k.a. Info Island) in April 2006, and library involvement in Second Life has expanded in the past 15 months to 10 library islands with over 4000 visitors a day and over 300 volunteers. In addition, a quick search for “library” under “Places” in Second Life gives 53 results. The teen version of Second Life also has a library, Knowville on Eye4You Alliance island.

Libraries are using Second Life in a variety of ways, including to:
o provide reference and research services,
o offer access to online books and other collections,
o hold meetings, conferences and classes,
o have book discussions and author talks,
o present displays and exhibits.

An article published in Reference Services Review on Second Life and library issues
(Grassian & Trueman, 2007) found that the benefits include “opportunities for collaboration, creativity, learning, and global networking with other librarians, educators, and technologists”, and that this environment could be used to extend a library’s reach in reference, collections, and information literacy to areas where users are going.

There are now even 2 six-week librarianship courses being offered (in Second Life) regarding services in a virtual world. See the “New Virtual World Librarianship courses” blog post for details.

The best way to see and understand what libraries are doing in Second Life is to set up a free account, create an avatar and visit it yourself. Help with this process can be obtained by downloading The Unofficial Complete Fool's Guide to Second Life.

The second best way (although a quicker way) to see is by clicking on the following videos, slide shows, and blogs.

View these 2 brief slide shows to get a fast and easy sense of what libraries are doing in Second Life:

Second Life & Info Island: Library Service in a Virtual World

Flying Librarians of Oz: What's all the fuss about Second Life and what's it got to do with libraries?

Surf these focused blogs for detailed information about Second Life and libraries:

InfoIsland (Second Life Library 2.0)

Second Life: Binary Footprints

Eye4You Alliance on Teen Second Life

HealthInfo Island

Second Life Education Research

Check out these blog posts for further examples of how libraries are using Second Life:

McMaster Library Reference on Second Life

Michigan Library Consortium in Second Life

Gaming and Libraries Symposium Enthusiasm

ALA’s Second Life

Second Life at Internet Librarian

The Ultimate Virtual Library (MLA handout of links, etc.)

Second Life Resources - For Librarians

Institutions and Organizations in SL

Best of all, watch these short videos for actual “views” inside Second Life libraries:

Tour of Info Island / Second Life Libraries

Info Island Archipelago Tour

Second Life Reference

Murdoch Uni Library gets a Second Life

Knowville - Second Life

SJSU SLIS Second Life Campus Spring development

Librarians of Second Life: Part 1

Librarians of Second Life: Part 2

Librarians Gathering: Live in Second Life

Alliance Library Second Life One-Year BDay

Virtual Hospital of Play2Train in Second Life

Virtualbridges Tour of SL Library, Part 2

Other Second Life Resources

Performing a Play in Second Life

Suzanne Vega's avatar sings "The Queen and the Soldier"

Second Life Speech Tools demo

Second Life Voice Beta

The Dark Side of Second Life

Virtual-reality crimes present literal challenge for real-life police

Living A Second Life

Egyptian creations on SL

Cybercrime on Second Life

Some More On Social Networking

I spent a lot of this weekend immersed in Hogwarts, or recovering from staying up until the wee hours of the morning reading. And, even in this most traditional (and geektacular) form of reading (involving, you know, a book), social software was pretty much everywhere.

Some examples:

• Days before, a kind and clever relative of mine sent me an email instructing on how to download a leaked pdf of the book, should I so desire. I, of course, am virtuous and resisted such a pernicious temptation. I did, however, spend some time cruising livejournal for spoilers (all lies!) with a wary hand over my eyes.
• After I finished the book, my roommate and I typed frantically over msn (to avoid shrieking something aloud and spoiling it for her younger sister who was visiting us).
• Photos of our great adventure were posted on Facebook, tagged and shared with amusing captions.
• I spent a couple of hours yesterday searching for reviews/ reactions on technorati.

I should also note that I can no longer feel any lingering resentment about Facebook (see my previous post on Facebook here) because I have my very own fanclub. Since this is, like, the highlight of my life, I must conclude that Facebook is good for something. *sigh*

I have been thinking about the best practices for libraries and social software and will post something longer about this later in the week. While I was thinking about this, I went to my hometown library's homepage this morning, and it was a little disconcerting. There is no RSS feed, no virtual reference, and not even a web-domain of its own. And yet, I know that the library is an incredibly central part of the community.

More later.

Harry Potter and (the) Social Software

This article is a pretty thorough run-down of some of the Harry Potter controversies a-brewing on the internets, and the role played by social software. As for the relationship to social software and libraries... well, this might throw a wrench in the division of between those who buy the books and those who go to the library. Or it could be that I'm way too excited about book seven.

Readings (11)

Online Social Networks, Continued

First, a disclaimer: I have some difficulty with some of these articles (the Stephen Abram article in particular-- despite its Star Trek references) because of its focus on what “the kids” are doing nowadays and how “cool” these initiatives are. I feel very unprofessional in this context because I'm very much on the side of the kids-- down with “the youtube” and all.

I think this lack of connection informs my attitude about libraries becoming involved in online social networks like MySpace or Facebook. I'm no longer the spring chicken I suspect these initiatives are being marketed toward (as discussed by Robert J. Lackie in his article, but I don't think my younger self would have appreciated “the man” (uh, not that I ever used the term “the man” when I was younger), invading a space I had to connect with my friends away from the prying eyes of authority.

The other side of this (and maybe one of the key differences between MySpace and Facebook?) is that when I've heard libraries mentioned in conjunction with Facebook, it's in terms of professional networking-- joining groups according to your interests for the purposes of forming connections with like-minded professionals in your field. (Also-- why you shouldn't post those drunken conference pics.) This strikes me as a better way for a library to connect with patrons (“join our graphic novel group!”) than trying to “friend” individuals.

I really liked Meredith Farkas’ point about social software illuminating problems that existed before their advent and that ultimately, “we have no right to ban a Web site based on the subjective value judgments we place on it.” I think this is really important.