IL & "Second Life" in Public Libraries

What are the implications for information literacy instruction posed in this message, posted to the Second Life Librarians Google Group:

On Aug 28, 12:32 pm, "Cecily Walker" wrote:
Hi everyone,

This is my first post to the list, so I hope you'll forgive me for
posting a "trawling for information" message as my first.

I'm a librarian with the Vancouver Public Library in Vancouver, BC.
We're looking into the possibility of making Second Life available on
our public terminals, but are interested in looking at Second Life
policies from other libraries. Specifically, we're wondering whether
your library allows patrons to use SL from the public terminals, and
if so, what sort of safeguards did you have to put in place? I'm also
interested in hearing from people who work for libraries that don't allow SL.

If you'd like to reply to me off the list, that would be OK - I'll
compile a summary of responses and make it available if anyone's
interested. When you reply, could you please include the library you
work for and your title?

Thank you so much for your attention.

Cecily Walker
Auxiliary Librarian I
Vancouver Public Library
cecil...@vpl.ca
cecily.wal...@gmail.com (I can be reached via Google talk if you prefer)

Using Laptops During Exams?

Teemu Leinonen in Finland responded to a series of messages on this topic on a New Media Consortium listserv. He said that he'd met with some officials from the Finland Ministry of Education who are considering allowing secondary school students to use laptops during exams. Apparently they mentioned that this is already permitted in Denmark. Teemu then provided a lnik to his blog posting comparing U.S. schools to those in Finland. It's interesting to note that Finnish high school students must take national exams that last for 4-8 DAYS (!) at 6 hours/day. These exams are supposed to measure "the big picture, general knowledge, and higher level concepts," as opposed to rote learning. Teachers in Finnish high schools work together to develop large projects for students to undertake, that span various disciplinary areas. Although he Teemu doesn't say so, information literacy instruction could sure help those teachers and students in their endeavors.

LILi Web Site: Links to New IL Standards + LILi Minutes

Links just posted to the LILi web site:

• Information Competencies for Chemistry Undergraduates
• Information Literacy Standards for Anthropology and Sociology Students
• LILi Advisory Board Minutes for February, May and July 2008
  

New Camtasia Videos: Road to Research Tutorial

Just added 9 new videos to the Road to Research online information literacy tutorial http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/library/

Each video is just over 2 minutes long. 4 of the videos focus on searching, identifying, evaluating, and locating useful articles by using Academic Search Complete, with 4 more of the same videos, but with captioning.

The 9th video is a caption-less copy of the existing Find It! Books video mounted in this tutorial.

These videos may be useful both to UCLA students, staff and faculty, and to those who wish to prepare their students for a visit to the UCLA Library, in order to make use of UCLA Library resources. Keep in mind that many public libraries, like Los Angeles Public Library and the Santa Monica Public Library, offer remote use of their databases to cardholders. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) also offers remote databases for use by students and teachers.

California State Lbirary Think Tank

The California State Library is convening a 1 1/2 day think tank to "create three scenarios for what statewide reference could become." Input will be gathered at the CLA (California Library Association) Conference and through other means, regarding "what scenarios or pieces of scenarios will be most beneficial to all." The State Library will use the results to formulate an action plan for a new statewide reference model. LILi has been told that information literacy will be addressed as well, and that this process is likely to result in altered State Library priorities. Future LSTA grant proposals in the state will be need to be linked to the new priorities. (Note: Quotes are from the website .)

Once these new priorities have been established, LILi Advisory Board members will need to discuss them and decide whether or not to reapply for an LSTA grant or some other grant, in order to survey California libraries regarding their information literacy instruction.

Sparky Awards Video Contest

Just announced... SPARC, ACRL, ARL and other "organizers of the Sparky Awards video contest have released several new resources to help... instructors and librarians engage students in an exploration of information sharing and copyright by encouraging their participation in the 2008 contest, “MindMashup: The Value of Information Sharing.” Contestants are invited to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information on the Internet. Mashup is an expression referring to a song, video, Web site, or software application that combines content from more than one source.

Educators at all types of institution – including 4-year colleges and universities, community and junior colleges, art and film schools, and others – are invited to incorporate the contest into fall curricula, whether as a formal assignment or extracurricular activity."

7 Tips: Starting an Academic Library in Second Life

Following are the detailed tips I presented at the ACRL discussion on Starting an Academic Library in Second Life:

TIP 1: Seek out and be open to opportunities and possibilities
o In December 2005, I attended a wonderful 2-day online New Media Consortium conference on educational gaming
o In April 2006, I got an SL avatar so I could attend the grand opening of NMC’s campus
o In Fall 2006, Lori Bell announced that Talis Company was providing free space for one year for libraries in the new Cybrary City
o I jumped on the opportunity and requested space for a tentative UCLA Library, pending approval

TIP 2: Get approval for a tentative site
o Sarah Watstein, UCLA’s AUL for Research & Instructional Services was extremely supportive of experimentation with new technology like SL & approved it tentatively
o And, Lori Bell very kindly gave us a building and put up a sign that said "Tentative UCLA Library"

TIP 3: Propose a service plan
o Sarah Watstein and I then developed a service plan proposal with 3 main elements:
• Building and enhancing library-faculty partnerships.
• Building and enhancing research collections.
• Enhancing services and focusing on information literacy.
o Our UL Gary E. Strong approved the service plan in Spring 2007 (copies available upon request: estherg@library.ucla.edu)

TIP 4: Start small
o For a long time, the only item in the UCLA Library was a Persian Tree of Life rug that I bought for L$10
o Slowly, very slowly, I added more items, some free, some purchased--I've spent a total of US$10 in SL since April 2006, when I first got an avatar, and the UCLA Library has spent a total of US$100 for a year’s rent
o Kind people like Abbey gave me items, too, including a slideshow display board and a monitor

TIP 5: Be brave and be willing to try, fail, and learn from failure
o I was so proud of myself when I figured out how to replace the urls that the monitor displays when you click on it, with UCLA Library urls
o This was after messing up lots of things, including half-burying the rug under the floor…
o Of course, this was all after I got up the nerve to even leave the home location I'd set for myself when I started out in SL--the New Media Consortium’s island
o I might have left a little sooner if I’d followed the next tip a bit more quickly

TIP 6: Ask for help
o In addition to the help that Lori Bell and Abbey provided, I was so lucky to have help from 50 Winx, a UCLA Library staff member who has very kindly helped make the UCLA Library look and work much better
o Thanks to 50, we now display images from one of our digital collections, the Online Campaign Literature Archive
o She also …
• created and mounted a banner with the UCLA Library logo, above the front door and on the
roof
• figured out how to swap out the image on the monitor so that it's the same as the UCLA
Library home page
• just mounted hovering text over the monitor that suggests clicking on it for UCLA Library
urls
o Very importantly, too, 50 has been instrumental in helping a UCLA serials cataloger learn
SL and hold a statewide meeting of UC serials cataloging staff in the UCLA Library in SL,
avoiding the need for them to spend an entire day travelling to this meeting
o That brings me to the last tip…

TIP 7: Share what you learn and offer to help others
o I've done presentations on SL to introduce it to UCLA library staff and computing center staff, as well as faculty and TAs
o 2 UCLA instructors have been using SL for some of their class meetings and assignments, including a library school faculty member, and I've met with some of their students
o A third UCLA instructor is planning to teach an entire course in SL in the Fall, and I'll be working with her to help her get oriented
o She’s also applied for grants to establish a UC Education Abroad site in SL, and has written me into grant proposals to teach information literacy sessions to students there.
o So far, no luck with grants, but she keeps trying, and that's a good lesson for us all…
o Try something new, learn from it, and keep trying.

Cable in the Classroom Magazine wants to know...

Just posted...

I am looking for educators to answer the following question for the Nov issue of Cable in the Classroom Magazine: How do you teach students to avoid plagiarism when they use the Web?

Ellen Ullman, Senior Editor, CIC Magazine
ellencci@earthlink.net

SCIL Meeting Set: 9/12 UC Riverside

Dominique Turnbow, 2008 SCIL Chair, posted the following information (Click on SCIL Business Meeting in the LILi Google Calendar for details regarding free parking for the 1st 15 respondents):

Hello, everyone. Our next SCIL Meeting will be on September 12 at UC Riverside. Details are below.

Please RSVP by September 10 if you are planning on attending. Directions:
http://library.ucr.edu/?view=about/directionstoucr.html

Meeting Location: Rivera Library, Rm. 403, UC Riverside.
Parking: Car pools are encourages. Note that there is metered visitor parking available on campus, but the maximum you can pay is 2 hours at a time. We recommend obtaining a day permit to avoid interrupting your stay to feed the meter. FYI: The Library will be closed to the public Thursday, September 11 for its annual planning retreat.

MacArthur Digital Learning & Media Competition 2008

Just announced...

DIGITAL MEDIA & LEARNING COMPETITION 2008

Focus: Participatory Learning
Application deadline: October 15, 2008
Full information at: http://www.dmlcompetition.net/

The second HASTAC/MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition is now open!

Awards will be made in two categories:

1. Innovations in Participatory Learning Awards support large-scale digital learning projects $30,000 - $25,000

2. Young Innovator Awards are targeted at 18-25 year-olds
$5,000 - $30,000

Visual Bibliography of IL Resources

Lisa Metzer has added the LILi blog to her amazing visual bibliography of IL resources. Take a look:
http://www.mindomo.com/view.htm?m=fe51f580c91d44ee861399a1cadecaf0

"I Love My Librarian Award" - Public Library Librarians

Just posted:
CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK/NEW YORK TIMES I LOVE MY LIBRARIAN AWARD ANNOUNCED

Nominations for public librarians open August 15

Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded the American Library Association $489,000 to support the new Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award.

For more information, visit www.ilovelibraries.org/ilovemylibrarian.

InfoLit iSchool Discussion on Information Behavior & Information Literacy

Today Sheila Webber/Sheila Yoshikawa at the University of Sheffield (England) hosted a very interesting discussion at their InfoLit iSchool island in Second Life. The discussion was about the research done by two people who had presented at a conference yesterday at Sheffield: Pam McKinney and Yaszdan Mansourian. PowerPoint slide shows for both are available. Here are a few quotes and notes...

"Yazdan was doing qualitative research, using grounded theory approach and he interviewed researchers/academics in the biology/biosciences dept here at sheffield, investigating concepts of failure in web search. and this model was one of the key outcomes... you will see there are different zones that a search might fall into depeneding on, firstly, how certain/not certain the person was that what he/she was searfching for was on teh web, and then the other dimension is whether the information was found or not. So if you thought the info was there and it was - bright zone! You will see from the ppt that we went on to use this with students in sheffield
then in iran where yazdan is now a professor. Students had to think about a time when they had a successful search and a failed search then plot those on the diagram. Then that can be used as a way of helping them reflect on WHY--WHY the search failed or succeeded. At the end Yazdan has sugggested ways it can be used by librarians.... One question that cam up yesterday was why should be people search if the don't think the info us there and Yazdan gave an example from an interview, where someone wanted to double check before submitting a research grant - in this case no information = successful search - so there was still useful information (Ie that noone had done teh work), and then afterwards they can see whether their perception was coorrect... showing that it is important to let people do what they do, makemistakes, and then reflect on failure."

"Annie [McMinnar] is in CILASS...the focus is Inquiry Based Learning and it is a well-funded project with a very small central team and majority of the work going on in real classes in different departments. over 100 projects in different depts/classes and teh library is also a partner, I'll mention for example they had a series of lunchtime training sessions
learning about IBL [Inquiry Based Learning]... Annie highlighhts that information literacy was a key CILASS strand from the start and she identifies 4 ways in which Info Literacy has been incorporated in curriculum design sometimes more thoroughly - example of the English Dept
with info literacy a key point of the project, other times a bit more added in with persuasion. but i would say that now there are faculty (professors, academics, lecturers, whatever you want to call them) whi talk about information literacy....

Annie: "...I think the force of our project funding has really helped me be effective in promoting information literacy..."
Sheila Yoshikawa: "9 million US dollars... that's spread over 5 years and includes some capital funding... Higher education funding council of England... it was part of a programme of centres for excellence in teaching... HEFCE are the major funders of... ENGLISH universities..."

Annie: There is a lot of info on our website: http://www.shef.ac.uk/cilass/

Report on ACRL SL "Starting an Academic Library in Second Life" Discussion

17 avatars attended this 1st discussion on the ACRL Second Life site on the ALA Island. There were 4 presenters, including one person who's a rural public library director:

-Puglet Dancer/Barbara Galick, Executive Director of the Cullom-Davis Library at
Bradley University and President of the Board of Directors of the Alliance Library
System (ALS).
-Alexandria Knight/Esther Grassian (me), Information Literacy Librarian, UCLA
College Library
-50 Winx/Rhonda Super, UCLA Library
-Sonja Morgwain/Sonja Plummer-Morgan, a public library director for a rural public
library in Northern Maine and serves as the VP/President Elect of the Maine Library
Association, board member for the Association for Rural & Small Libraries, and on the
ALA’s University Press Committee.

Here are a few quotes from the presenters--I have a full transcript if anyone wants one--just email me estherg@library.ucla.edu

Puglet:
"I was the most unlikely person, I thought, to be entering a virtual world—I didn’t know what an avatar was, was not a gamer, and, in fact, was notorious for being totally uncoordinated in video games. But I did it! And the rest is slistory! LOL... Being the Director has its advantages at times. I presented the concept to my library faculty in a faculty meeting and said I wanted us to explore this 3-D MUVE—to see if it had any value for academic libraries and for higher education in general... In May 2007, the task force submitted a proposal for an innovative teaching award to develop an island for Bradley University and to explore how it could be used on campus...We received the award and bought Info Island 2 when it became available, renamed the island and built our campus. We have had a homecoming celebration and grand opening events, and regularly have exhibits of student work.

Alexandria:
7 Tips for Starting an Academic Library in Second Life (details available upon request):
TIP 1: Seek out and be open to opportunities and possibilities
TIP 2: Get approval for a tentative site
TIP 3: Propose a service plan
TIP 4: Start small
TIP 5: Be brave and be willing to try, fail, and learn from failure
TIP 6: Ask for help
TIP 7: Share what you learn and offer to help others

50 Winx:
"I have to concur with Alexandria, especially on a few points:
[17:23] 50 Winx: • Start small.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
• Second Life is a collaborative endeavor...

I am working on a library science degree from San Jose State University, which has built a campus in Second Life... When Alexandria gave a brown bag lunch presentation on Second Life at work, I attended and registered on Second Life shortly thereafter. One month later I broke my ankle, and had to stay fairly immobile for several months. Suddenly, I had LOTS of time to spend on Second Life.

The time I spent on Second Life during my recuperation gave me the opportunity to see its potential as an immersive educational tool and a tool for collaboration. I gained an understanding of the role social networks can play for people with disabilities. It also gave me the opportunity to build my skills so I could train others... I was invited to give a presentation about Second Life to the cataloging department, and I prepared a HTML document with information regarding context, resources, tutorials, and instructions. The document was posted on the cataloging department’s Wiki so people in the department can access the information at their convenience.

Our head serials cataloger wanted to explore using Second Life as a meeting place for catalogers within our consortium. This would provide a means for cutting down on travel time and expenses. She arranged to have librarians from three campuses register onto Second Life. I volunteered to conduct training sessions at noon on Fridays to get everyone up to speed with Second Life basics. Of course we had training sessions in our Second Life Library. After four sessions the group held their first meeting in Second Life.

I coordinated our efforts with Alexandria and we worked toward configuring the Second Life UCLA Library as a meeting place. We are continuing these efforts and are meeting jointly with the cataloger and our IT department to explore setting up Sloodle (the class management system, Moodle adapted for Second Life) as a collaborative tool to use during meetings. We are also looking into ways we can partnership our efforts with other departments on campus."

Sonja:
"After experimenting with SL for a few days and researching this environment and its present uses in various professions, I decided to experiment for my self what Second Life was like. Something said at that conference had a profound impact on me about how librarians should lead technology and not follow along...

I find Second Life Librarians practice that daily and in creative ways and are outstanding leaders naturally...

It as immediately apparent to me that Second Life as a means of mitigating the isolation felt by rural librarians held outstanding potential. Geography is conquered here and, as such, this proved a tool to network with librarians across all types of libraries and cultures. Second Life Librarians were role models from which much could be learned and I wanted to be part of that global team and contribute meaningfully.
For a rural librarian, travel was and is becoming terribly expensive. Second Life provides professional develop opportunities that I’d never be privy to in real life. I meet librarians from all over the world. This is a remarkable embellishment to my ability to provide service to real life patrons.

I have grown much in the few months that I have been here... the relationships, both professional and social have enriched my first life, given me a greater appreciation for our profession, and given me models of best practices that I may never had been able to experience first hand.

Since creating my own library in Second Life, my activities in Second Life have expanded to volunteering for Alliance Library Systems as a virtual reference librarian on Info International two nights a week, manage my own virtual library here on Cybrary...

What began as an opportunity to expand professionally has grown into an ability to use my skills and gifts for a user base that once I could only dream of doing. My perspective has changed dramatically for I see Second Life as not only a powerful venue for professional development and networking but a means of showing a user base - students and the like what leadership from a librarian means and how that can benefit their information needs and search for knowledge."

"Starting an Academic Library in Second Life"

"Starting an Academic Library in Second Life"

Please join us at the ACRL site on the ALA Island in Second Life (SL) for a free panel discussion by librarians who have started academic libraries in SL. Learn how they did it and get tips for yourself and your library. If you have an SL avatar, come yourself and offer to project so that others in your library can observe and listen. Look forward to seeing you there!

Date & Time: Tuesday, August 12th, 5 pm - 6 pm SLT (PDT)
Location: ALA Island, ACRL site
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ALA%20Island/36/191/32
Panelists:
-Puglet Dancer/Barbara Galik, Bradley University Library
-Donna Upshaw/Alexia Hudson, Penn State Great Valley
-50 Winx/Rhonda Super and Alexandria Knight/Esther Grassian,
UCLA
-Sonja Morgwain/Sonja Plummer Morgan, Mark & Emily
Turner Memorial Library - Head of Library Outreach Program for
Alliance Virtual Library

(Posted on behalf of Abbey Zenith/Rhonda Trueman, Chair, ACRL Second Life Task Force. Cross-posted to other lists--apologies for duplication. Please forward to others who may be interested.)
Best,
Esther

Muliple Intelligences in Education Discussion

On August 5th, I attended a very interesting discussion held in Second Life (SL), and sponsored by the Sheffield University iSchool. The person who lead the discussion is an MA student in Education at CSU Monterey Bay. She built and demoed an interactive SL sim that focuses on 8 of Howard Gardner's muliple intelligences, such as musical, math/logic, etc. Here's a description of that event. I'll post the other upcoming discussions in our Calendar.

Zotarah Shepherd will be talking about using Multiple Intelligences in education in Second Life, on Tuesday 5th August starting at 12 noon SL time (8pm UK time). This one-hour discussion starts on Infolit iSchool (Sakura House) in Second Life and will include a visit to her model of multiple intelligences on Koru.

Volunteer Opportunity - Help a Tijuana Orphanage with their Library

Just received this information regarding a volunteer opportunity for Thursday, August 21st.
Esther

Reed Elsevier's Spring Funding granted San Diego RE Cares $10,000 for
Corazon de Vida's La Roca Orphanage. RE Cares will be upgrading the
small onsite La Roca library so it offers more value to La Roca
Primary School students. Our project is well underway with a planned
bus trip for August 21, 2008. On this trip we will be cleaning and
organizing the area for the Library. Assembling furniture, organizing
books, installing ceiling fans and window treatments and setting up a
computer room.

Registration is open. We hope to get 50 volunteers for this project.
To register for the trip click to sign up. As on previous trips,
family and friends are welcome to come along.

I’m excited to report that my company has agreed to fund an upgrade or
build a new library each year at an Orphanage in Tijuana. Since, our
company is underwriting the cost of the trip and the library
reconstruction there is no cost to attend. Please let me know if you
have any interest in attending. A passport is preferred, but a valid
birth certificate and driver license would also be okay. The bus will
pick up at Mt Olive Church in Santa Monica (Ocean Park and 14th) at
6:30am on Thursday, August 21st. We will return between 6pm-7pm the
same day.
RE Cares San Diego Granted $10,000 for La Roca Library Project

Want to sign up? Please visit www.ProjectLaRoca.Blogspot.com.

Questions? Please contact SLA-SD member Daria DeCooman (who works as a
senior library communications manager for Elsevier in San Diego) at
619.699.6283 or d.decoo...@elsevier.com.

SCIL (Southern California Instruction Librarians) Meeting Minutes

Marsha Schnirring announced:
Minutes from the July SCIL Business Meeting at CSU, Channel Islands have been posted to the SCIL website: http://www.carl-acrl.org/ig/scil/

SCIL is a committee of the California ACRL Chapter, CARL. It started out in 1975 as a subcommittee of a CLA (California Library Association) reference group, but soon dwarfed its "mother group." It split into two groups, the California Clearinghouse on Library Instruction (CCLI), South, and North. The Southern group affiliated with CARL, while the Northern group is still a standalone organization. Both are grassroots organizations of instruction librarians, and both put on very interesting and worthwhile programs, in addition to offering networking opportunities with other enthusiastic instruction librarians. Check it out!

CARLDIG-South Meeting Added to Calendar

Just received from Lise Snyder, UCLA College Library, and posted on the new California Information Literacy Events Google Calendar:

The next CARLDIG-South (California Academic Reference Librarians
Discussion Interest Group) planning meeting will take place *Friday,
August 29, from 10-12 at CSU Fullerton. *The meeting will be held in the
Pollack Library, room 360 South. This room is located in the original
half of the library. $5.00 parking permits are sold at permit machines
in Lots A, E, G, Arts Drive and levels 2, 4, 6 of State College
Structure. These daily permits are valid in all student lots and parking
structures (see map at
http://parking.fullerton.edu/Maps/PrintableCampusMap.pdf )
*Please note: CSU Faculty permits from other institutions are NOT valid at CSUF. *

Directions to the campus can be found at:
http://www.fullerton.edu/campusmap/ . If you plan to attend, RSVP to
Will Breitbach at wbreitbach@fullerton.edu
. Light refreshments will be provided
so we need to know how many people are coming.

Lise Snyder
CARLDIG-South Chair
ph: 310 206-4474 fax: 310 206-9312
email: lsnyder@library.ucla.edu

Today's Blended Librarianship ACRL Webcast

Steven Bell and John Shank presented "Thinking Like a Designer: How Blended Librarians Can Use Design Thinking for Better IL Collaboration." There were references to a number of books and articles, including Daniel Pink's *A Whole New Mind* (2005), Andrew Grove's *Only the Paranoid Survive* (1996), a July/Aug 2008 Atlantic article by Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" , Seth Godin's "This is Broken" site , and to today's posting on the ACRLog: http://acrlog.org/ I have somewhat fuller notes if anyone wants them, but had to leave early to go to a Second Life (SL) presentation on how to do presentations and teach classes in SL. That was excellent and I'll post a message about this soon.

LILi LSTA Grant Proposal Not Funded

It's very disappointing to announce that our LSTA grant proposal for an IL survey of all LA County libraries has not been funded by the California State Library. They received much less than expected Federal funding, we were told. We were also referred to the results of the upcoming California State Reference Think Tank, scheduled for August 25-26 in Pasadena. I'll post more information as we learn more, and we will discuss it further at our next meeting, following the September 19th workshop for high school and community college librarians, at UCLA College Library, 10:30 am - 1 pm: "Wikipedia, YouTube, & Information Literacy!" RSVP by September 12th: estherg@library.ucla.edu