Panelist Opportunity: Museum/Library Collaboration

The American Library Association's Virtual Communities and Libraries Member Interest Group will hold an online conference on the ALA island in Second Life (SL March 5th through 6th, 2010. Panelists are needed for a session that will focus on museum and library collaboration, or potential collaboration, in virtual worlds, with some panelists from museums and others from libraries. If you are interested in participating in a 60-90-minute panel session on this topic (about 4-5 panelists with about 10-15 minutes per panelist), please email Esther Grassian estherg@library.ucla.edu, and include a few notes about what you would cover. There would be no travel expenses involved, since the conference will take place entirely in SL. Please respond for yourself or to recommend others (including museum staff) by Monday, January 25th.

Information Literacy Panel & Poster Session in Second Life

On Wednesday, April 29, 2009, from 1:30 to 5 pm SLT/PDT, I’ll be hosting a panel and poster sessions related to information literacy at the Second Life Info Island Open Air Auditorium:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/97/116/33

This panel and poster session event will be held during a regularly scheduled class session for the UCLA Information Studies Department graduate course I’m teaching this Quarter. The course is called “Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Practice.” There are 21 students in the class, and they’re interested in various types of libraries, including academic libraries and public libraries. Most of my students are new to SL and have been asked to get an avatar and attend the session in SL. Many will probably also attend class in our regularly scheduled computer lab in RL.

There will be about 8 panelists and about the same number of poster sessions during this timeframe. Panelists have been asked to address several questions regarding their library’s information literacy instruction in any format, including virtual worlds.

Because of the size of my class and the number of panelists and poster session participants, as well as limitations on the number of avs that can be accommodated in order to minimize lag, I am only posting this announcement to the SLL Google Group and to the LILi blog: http://lifelonginfoliteracy.blogspot.com/

With the permission of the participants, I will try to make available any notecards created and the transcript. If possible, and if it’s agreeable to the participants, I’ll also try to leave the posters up for a while in case anyone would like to drop by and view them afterwards.

This is an experiment in using SL for this panel discussion and a poster session, and I hope that if you're interested you'll feel welcome to attend, but if lag becomes a problem, I hope you'll also consider leaving the session and allowing me to provide you with a transcript and then return to view the poster sessions at a later time.

I want to thank Abbey Zenith in advance for her encouragement and support, and for her excellent training session in how to create a poster, as well as embed a notecard in an object. Abbey will be welcoming the students, the participants, and attendees at the beginning of the session. Thank you so much, Abbey!

Invitation: 7th Mellon Seminar in Digital Humanities

Just posted to a number of lists...

You are invited to attend the April 2009 Mellon Seminar in Digital Humanities: http://tinyurl.com/472nah

Topic: Info-Triage and Sticky Media: Intersections of Design Theory & the Digital Humanities
Presenter: Peter Lunenfeld
Date: Monday, April 6, 2009
Time: 2 pm – 5 pm SLT/PDT
Location:
Real Life (RL): UCLA Visualization Portal (5628 Math and Sciences Bldg.)
Second Life (SL): Entropia, the Digital Library Federation’s SL island—rsvp needed
Second Life basic accounts are free: http://secondlife.com
NOTE to SL attendees: Please rsvp to Esther Grassian estherg@library.ucla.edu to reserve a space and receive the SLURL (SL url), as well as instructions for viewing the live video feed and adjusting the audio in SL.

Contemporary theories of communication design, interaction design, and media design are important to the overall project of the digital humanities. In contrast to fine art, architecture, and film, design was slow to accrete sophisticated aesthetic and social theories; historically, designers themselves created a maker's discourse heavy on technical analysis. Coincident with the rise of design as a cultural force since the beginning of this decade, though, a more rigorous and informed theoretical attention to design emerged. 21st century design theory offers powerful ways to think about interactive technologies and creative practices. Combining strategies from design theory with the deep resonance offered by the digital humanities increases the potential for mindful downloading and meaningful uploading.

Peter Lunenfeld is a professor in the Design | Media Arts department at UCLA. His books include The Digital Dialectic (MIT, 1999), Snap to Grid (MIT, 2000) USER (MIT, 2005), and The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading (forthcoming). As creator and editorial director of the Mediawork project, he produced a pamphlet series for the MIT Press that redefined the relationship between serious academic discourse and graphic design. http://www.peterlunenfeld.com

The reading for this seminar, an excerpt from Prof. Lunenfeld's upcoming book The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: How the Computer Became Our Culture Machine, will be emailed to the mailing list for the seminar rather than posted to the website.

Mellon Seminars in Digital Humanities

During this academic year, 9 Mellon Seminars in Digital Humanities will take place at UCLA in Real Life (RL), in Humanities Building 193/199. They will be "broadcast" simultaneously into Second Life (SL) via a live feed to Entropia, the Digital Library Federation's SL island. The following SLurl (Second Life URL) will teleport you to Entropia, though you must have an SL account in order to log on: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Entropia/110/117/21/

SL accounts are free: http://secondlife.com/

Topics to be covered include Web 2.0, virtual worlds, digital narratives, and the classroom as laboratory.

Seminars will be offered from 2 to 5 pm (U.S. Pacific time) on the following dates:

Fall Quarter: October 8th, November 5th, December 1st
Winter Quarter: January 5th, February 2d, March 2d
Spring Quarter: April 6th, May 4th, June 1st

Todd Presner (UCLA, Germanic Languages) and Jeffrey Schnapp (Stanford University, Stanford Humanities Laboratory), ask that this information be shared with anyone interested in attending in RL or in SL.

Email estherg@library.ucla.edu if you would like a copy of the flyer with more details.

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."