I'm switching houses...will still be on the same land, but putting up a different cottage. So to say goodbye to my old house I'm having an open house Friday starting at 6 p.m SLT. ALL are welcome...there will, of course, be dancing and a chance to poke around in my SL stuff....
In other news: last night Rocky helped me set the land so that the library would show up when someone does a search. The way I had it set, we showed up as a group but not as a library. He suggested we also change the description so that "Kansas City" and "Johnson County" also become key words. Haven't done that yet.
AND don't forget the Talis open house is Aug. 13 starting at 4 p.m. slt (6 p.m. Central time). I'll need to check with you all at some point to see who can be there.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Art Work
SL weekend
his Thought I would share with you another wacko weekend in SL. Most times I forget to take photos, but this weekend I remembered! At left is Saturday night's pajama party at the Den. The Den is the lounge adjacent to the reference desk on Info Island. We are doing a Greek line dance. That black smudge in the middle is Krull, who always appears as a black cat.On the right is Sunday evening's "wear white" dance at the Jazz Cat on Info Island.
Below are links to two videos: the first is of the Bookbinders Ball on Friday. This is an annual Info Island event....not sure of its origin, but this year the theme was "come as your favorite Shakespeare character, actor or play." The second video is just for fun! There were also two staff meetings, including one that was an update on Alliance Library collections; an open house and benefit for Doctors without Borders; a RezLibris magazine staff meeting. Gosh darn, just ran out of time to mow the lawn.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/user/
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
project update
I am posting a copy of the email we came up with for our author, Jim Hoy. I am going to start spending some time getting our exhibits ready. Let me know if you have the time and inclination to help!
Dear Dr. Hoy.
Not long ago you received correspondence from Roy Bird at the KansasCenter for the Book inquiring about the possibility of yourparticipation in a unique Kansas-inspired presentation. We arecontacting you to follow up on that inquiry.
"We" are Bill Sowers, Kansas Documents Librarian at the State Libraryof Kansas, Diana Sowers, Acquisitions, Topeka-Shawnee County PublicLibrary and Lorie Hyten, Reference Librarian and Second Life projectCoordinator, Olathe Public Library, Olathe, Ks.
At present, we represent the only Kansas libraries with a presence inthe virtual reality world of Second Life. We are hoping tocollaborate on projects that will highlight Kansas and educate thenational and international residents of Second Life regarding Kansas'unique history, resources and culture.
We are asking you to consider speaking at a program inside SecondLife. The program would be sponsored by our three institutions as wellas the Kansas Center for the Book. We envision related exhibits at ourSecond Life libraries emphasizing aspects of Kansas natural andcultural history Your expertise in the history of Kansas and yourspecial knowledge of the Flint Hills and its cowboy culture would bean ideal topic for SL residents who come from all over the world aswell as the American Midwest. The presentation may also be shown in"real life" (via a projector hooked up to the Internet) in Olathe.
This entire project may sound outlandish to you! Please be assuredthere is a vital and active library community in Second Life, andauthor presentations are common. Kurt Vonnegut is among many who havestepped inside the virtual world to make new friends and fans. Otherauthors include Howard Rheingold and Cory Doctorow.
Such programs involve setting the speaker up with an "avatar" and amicrophone for speaking and responding to questions. You would notneed prior experience with Second Life to participate. We would bepleased to take care of all the details to make this as easy andenjoyable for you as possible. In fact, you may participate seated inyour own office! One of would also be willing to come down to Emporiaduring your presentation to trouble shoot if any technical problemsarose.We would be happy to come to Emporia to give you a brief introductionto Second Life and its various wonders! We hope you will seriouslyconsider this invitation to join us in a celebration of the state thisSeptember.
Thank you,Lorie HytenBill SowersDiana Sowers
Dear Dr. Hoy.
Not long ago you received correspondence from Roy Bird at the KansasCenter for the Book inquiring about the possibility of yourparticipation in a unique Kansas-inspired presentation. We arecontacting you to follow up on that inquiry.
"We" are Bill Sowers, Kansas Documents Librarian at the State Libraryof Kansas, Diana Sowers, Acquisitions, Topeka-Shawnee County PublicLibrary and Lorie Hyten, Reference Librarian and Second Life projectCoordinator, Olathe Public Library, Olathe, Ks.
At present, we represent the only Kansas libraries with a presence inthe virtual reality world of Second Life. We are hoping tocollaborate on projects that will highlight Kansas and educate thenational and international residents of Second Life regarding Kansas'unique history, resources and culture.
We are asking you to consider speaking at a program inside SecondLife. The program would be sponsored by our three institutions as wellas the Kansas Center for the Book. We envision related exhibits at ourSecond Life libraries emphasizing aspects of Kansas natural andcultural history Your expertise in the history of Kansas and yourspecial knowledge of the Flint Hills and its cowboy culture would bean ideal topic for SL residents who come from all over the world aswell as the American Midwest. The presentation may also be shown in"real life" (via a projector hooked up to the Internet) in Olathe.
This entire project may sound outlandish to you! Please be assuredthere is a vital and active library community in Second Life, andauthor presentations are common. Kurt Vonnegut is among many who havestepped inside the virtual world to make new friends and fans. Otherauthors include Howard Rheingold and Cory Doctorow.
Such programs involve setting the speaker up with an "avatar" and amicrophone for speaking and responding to questions. You would notneed prior experience with Second Life to participate. We would bepleased to take care of all the details to make this as easy andenjoyable for you as possible. In fact, you may participate seated inyour own office! One of would also be willing to come down to Emporiaduring your presentation to trouble shoot if any technical problemsarose.We would be happy to come to Emporia to give you a brief introductionto Second Life and its various wonders! We hope you will seriouslyconsider this invitation to join us in a celebration of the state thisSeptember.
Thank you,Lorie HytenBill SowersDiana Sowers
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Learning new stuff
I was lucky to have the day off today and was able to attend a one-hour session on "advanced SL" with Wilbur Smith, CEO of Learning Times, as the presenter. A freind gave me some photos of the event, but I couldn't find a way to convert the file to a format that would work on the blog....so my substitute is this one, showing me at the Info Island reference desk asking reference desk volunteer Gareth Osaka if he knows how I can convert it. Gareth was very helpful, but ultimately I couldn't make it work.
The session was extremely good. Smith was an excellent low key, fun presenter who didn't seem to mind answering even the most basic questions, and I picked up some good info as well as a few useful freebies. Perhaps at our next meeting I can share what I learned about settings in preferences that affect how well SL works for you. Cleared up a problem I'd been having for WEEKS!!!!
There are lots of these kinds of sessions....some educational, some more recreational. You can check and see whats on tap (including parties and dances) if you go to the SL Librarians blog and check the calendar: http://infoisland.org/
There's a lot of good stuff on this blog, so you might want to add it to your RSS feed. And there are so many events its the only way I can keep track.
AUTHOR PROJECT: Rocky and Cindy are are work dissecting the letter I drafted to go to Jim Hoy...anxiously waiting to see what they come up with in the way of revisions, as I was nearly brain dead at the time I wrote it. Hard to ask someone to participate in an SL presentation when they don't know you OR SL.
RENT UPDATE: Checked with Teo....we are rent free until March 2009, when our annual rent will go to $100. Not a lot, but we do need make sure this is a viable project if we want to make a case for continued funding.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Projects update and misc.
Projects: I had a very productive meeting with Cindy and Rocky this weekend. As you may or may not recall, this project with the State Library of Kansas, Topeka-Shawnee County Public Library and the Kansas Center for the Book, calls for a Kansas author presentation in Second Life. Roy Bird, head of the Kansas Center for the Book, has contacted Jim Hoy of Emporia State University, with a request to be our presenter.
Hoy's book, "Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales of the Tallgrass Prairie" was a 2007 Kansas Notable Book. I understand he is a very entertaining speaker. At Emporia he is an English professor and the director of the Center for Great Plains Studies.
So far, the plan is for Olathe to develop related exhibits about the Hyer Boot Company and about the Mahaffie Stagecoach Shop. Cindy is looking into doing an exhibit on rail road history in Kansas. Rocky will probably do something on Kansas geology and perhaps the natural history of prairies. Rocky also knows a Fort Hays State University earth sciences professor who is also in Second Life and may assist with an exhibit and perhaps also give a presentation.
Each of our exhibits will refer visitors to the other two, and so promote all three organizations as well as a the Kansas Center for the Book and probably also the Center for Great Plains Studies.
The three of us will be drafting a letter to send to Hoy seeking his participation. We may also need to plan a trip to Emporia to introduce him in person to SL. The author programs I have seen so far (when the author is not already in SL) involve setting up an avatar for the presenter and getting them set up with a microphone for voice, so all they have to do is talk into the microphone and answer questions. They don't need to move their avatars around if they don't want to, nor do they need to establish an account.
We don't know yet if we would need to come up with a payment for the presenter.
We are looking at having the exhibits up well ahead of the presentation, and having the presentation possibly in September.
SO, your involvement, to the extent you want to be involved, is needed in the following areas:
*Mahaffie Farmsted exhibit (slideshow with photos, notecards and links and MAYBE some objects on dipslay if our prims allow it. Means selecting images to use and writing up or cutting and pasting the info into notecards)
*Hyer Boot story (same as above)
*Publicity...both "in world" and also in the real life (RL) library?
Much of this work doesn't need to be done in-world. Learning to set up a slide show might take an hour. Most of the work will be finding the images, making sure we permission to use them, and writing up the notecards that accompany the images.
Be thinking about this....you can put comments, suggestions, ideas etc. on the blog pending our next meeting.
OPEN HOUSE: I am involved in planning an open house for our sim, Talis Cybrary Island. Don't have a date yet. Each of the residents would give a short presentation on their projects, followed by mingling, a dance and GONDOLA RACES! It would be awesome if as many of you as possible could attend. More on this later.
WEB MONITORS AND PHOTOS IN THE LIBRARY: I need some help decided what links we want on our web monitors and also need some photos for the library walls. Steve is going to take pictures and photoshop the big mural in the library and the Kansas prairie woman picture, and maybe the children's storytime room quilt. I need help from ALL of you selecting other photos that show OPL in action. Stacy, could you look through kids program photos and suggest two or three? Angela, could you do the same for teens? Sara and Tina....help me sort through other photos?
NEXT MEETING: how did the Tuesday 10 a.m. to noon work for you all? Shall we try that again? and what date?
DON'T FORGET to try and steal some time to do some exploring on your own, PARTICULARLY libraries and museums. Be sure and visit Info International and the reference desk there. I am always happy to help, so don't hesitate to call on me. :)
Hoy's book, "Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales of the Tallgrass Prairie" was a 2007 Kansas Notable Book. I understand he is a very entertaining speaker. At Emporia he is an English professor and the director of the Center for Great Plains Studies.
So far, the plan is for Olathe to develop related exhibits about the Hyer Boot Company and about the Mahaffie Stagecoach Shop. Cindy is looking into doing an exhibit on rail road history in Kansas. Rocky will probably do something on Kansas geology and perhaps the natural history of prairies. Rocky also knows a Fort Hays State University earth sciences professor who is also in Second Life and may assist with an exhibit and perhaps also give a presentation.
Each of our exhibits will refer visitors to the other two, and so promote all three organizations as well as a the Kansas Center for the Book and probably also the Center for Great Plains Studies.
The three of us will be drafting a letter to send to Hoy seeking his participation. We may also need to plan a trip to Emporia to introduce him in person to SL. The author programs I have seen so far (when the author is not already in SL) involve setting up an avatar for the presenter and getting them set up with a microphone for voice, so all they have to do is talk into the microphone and answer questions. They don't need to move their avatars around if they don't want to, nor do they need to establish an account.
We don't know yet if we would need to come up with a payment for the presenter.
We are looking at having the exhibits up well ahead of the presentation, and having the presentation possibly in September.
SO, your involvement, to the extent you want to be involved, is needed in the following areas:
*Mahaffie Farmsted exhibit (slideshow with photos, notecards and links and MAYBE some objects on dipslay if our prims allow it. Means selecting images to use and writing up or cutting and pasting the info into notecards)
*Hyer Boot story (same as above)
*Publicity...both "in world" and also in the real life (RL) library?
Much of this work doesn't need to be done in-world. Learning to set up a slide show might take an hour. Most of the work will be finding the images, making sure we permission to use them, and writing up the notecards that accompany the images.
Be thinking about this....you can put comments, suggestions, ideas etc. on the blog pending our next meeting.
OPEN HOUSE: I am involved in planning an open house for our sim, Talis Cybrary Island. Don't have a date yet. Each of the residents would give a short presentation on their projects, followed by mingling, a dance and GONDOLA RACES! It would be awesome if as many of you as possible could attend. More on this later.
WEB MONITORS AND PHOTOS IN THE LIBRARY: I need some help decided what links we want on our web monitors and also need some photos for the library walls. Steve is going to take pictures and photoshop the big mural in the library and the Kansas prairie woman picture, and maybe the children's storytime room quilt. I need help from ALL of you selecting other photos that show OPL in action. Stacy, could you look through kids program photos and suggest two or three? Angela, could you do the same for teens? Sara and Tina....help me sort through other photos?
NEXT MEETING: how did the Tuesday 10 a.m. to noon work for you all? Shall we try that again? and what date?
DON'T FORGET to try and steal some time to do some exploring on your own, PARTICULARLY libraries and museums. Be sure and visit Info International and the reference desk there. I am always happy to help, so don't hesitate to call on me. :)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
cooperative reference services
Please read the following notice carefully. The Alliance Library System, which operates Info Island and coordinates library developments in SL, has proposed pooling resources to offer 24/7 reference service. This is a very important initiative. It may not be practical for us to participate at this time, but we will want to discuss this at a future meeting. Just FYI, I am a volunteer on the Info Island reference staff and have a two-hour shift each week. As such, I am a sort of unofficial representative of our SL library:
Consortial Reference Services
The Alliance Virtual Library, the innovator in reference services is pleased to invite you and your organization to partner with us in the development of a network to offer collaborative virtual reference services.
Reference was one of the first services started by the Alliance Virtual Library in SL, just over two years ago. It was a small, somewhat ad hoc service with four regular volunteers, covering about six hours of time a week. The vision was, and continues to be, to provide a generalist reference desk that could serve patrons arriving 24/7. By the end of 2006 we've grown to cover 80 hours a week, with around 38 regular volunteers, each covering a two hour shift. We help in the neighborhood of 300 patrons a week at present. The volunteers vary from MLS librarians to allied professions to paraprofessionals to friends of the library (i.e. classic library volunteer).
Our service has succeeded for a number of reasons. The foremost is presence. The presence of a live reference service person surprises and delights people and they do keep coming back. The success of our service depends entirely on our volunteers. They aren't employees; they are people working for their love of libraries.
More and more libraries are working to establish a presence in SL, and reference will be the flagship service they will want to offer. The success of a new venture might very well depend on that key element; a live presence to assist the patrons. Also, many individuals seeking to obtain permission and funding to begin a library in SL are often met with roadblocks having to do with this same service issue.
If you agree that there is enormous benefit to all concerned, your next questions must be, what must I do, and how will my library benefit. Collaborative virtual reference partners pledge time (ideally a two hour weekly shift) or other support to help expand the centralized reference services at Info International. In exchange the Alliance Virtual Library will offer your patrons a direct link to our services via intersim teleporters, landmarks, and notecards to be placed in your library in a unified kiosk. In development is a group of mentors for new libraries and librarians in SL. Also planned are programs targeted to help libraries create a viable and valuable presence in second life. Participation also offers a chance to make your presence more viable and to produce statistical proof for their home institutions and administrators.
We believe the goal of collaborative virtual reference to expand the live library services may be one of the most important things we will do. Please contact one of the Alliance Virtual Library staff members to discuss this concept at length. We are eager to begin our partnership with you.
Hypatia Dejavu - Reference Services Coordinator
Teofila Matovav - New Librarians/Library Group
Sonja Morgwain - New Librarians/Library Group
Abbey Zenith - Director of Library Services
Consortial Reference Services
The Alliance Virtual Library, the innovator in reference services is pleased to invite you and your organization to partner with us in the development of a network to offer collaborative virtual reference services.
Reference was one of the first services started by the Alliance Virtual Library in SL, just over two years ago. It was a small, somewhat ad hoc service with four regular volunteers, covering about six hours of time a week. The vision was, and continues to be, to provide a generalist reference desk that could serve patrons arriving 24/7. By the end of 2006 we've grown to cover 80 hours a week, with around 38 regular volunteers, each covering a two hour shift. We help in the neighborhood of 300 patrons a week at present. The volunteers vary from MLS librarians to allied professions to paraprofessionals to friends of the library (i.e. classic library volunteer).
Our service has succeeded for a number of reasons. The foremost is presence. The presence of a live reference service person surprises and delights people and they do keep coming back. The success of our service depends entirely on our volunteers. They aren't employees; they are people working for their love of libraries.
More and more libraries are working to establish a presence in SL, and reference will be the flagship service they will want to offer. The success of a new venture might very well depend on that key element; a live presence to assist the patrons. Also, many individuals seeking to obtain permission and funding to begin a library in SL are often met with roadblocks having to do with this same service issue.
If you agree that there is enormous benefit to all concerned, your next questions must be, what must I do, and how will my library benefit. Collaborative virtual reference partners pledge time (ideally a two hour weekly shift) or other support to help expand the centralized reference services at Info International. In exchange the Alliance Virtual Library will offer your patrons a direct link to our services via intersim teleporters, landmarks, and notecards to be placed in your library in a unified kiosk. In development is a group of mentors for new libraries and librarians in SL. Also planned are programs targeted to help libraries create a viable and valuable presence in second life. Participation also offers a chance to make your presence more viable and to produce statistical proof for their home institutions and administrators.
We believe the goal of collaborative virtual reference to expand the live library services may be one of the most important things we will do. Please contact one of the Alliance Virtual Library staff members to discuss this concept at length. We are eager to begin our partnership with you.
Hypatia Dejavu - Reference Services Coordinator
Teofila Matovav - New Librarians/Library Group
Sonja Morgwain - New Librarians/Library Group
Abbey Zenith - Director of Library Services
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
New furniture!
Steve/Hyen and I did a little shopping today (Tuesday, July 1) and bought some new living room furniture for the seating area. The store we shopped at is a new one specializing in ultra low prim furniture, and much more stylish than the stuff we had before. Steve and I liked it....stop in and see what you think. The menus on the furniture don't seem to be working correctly tho, so I will contact the designer to see if he can fix them.
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