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. :)