Next meeting.....

Below is another just for fun photo....exploring the new classical music sim with Rocky and HollyJean.

We need to set up another meeting date and time....do you want to shoot for a Tuesday again? I know we have all been swamped with one thing or another, and I am on vacation the first two weeks in September (darn! Missing Old Settlers AGAIN! :( ....) So how about Tuesday Sept. 23? From 10 a.m. to noon? We may have to futz around with meeting times and dates with all the scheduling changes.

Also, heads up, Stacy is joining us. Her in world name is Anastasia Bookmite, so if you get a friend invite from someone by that name you could probably safely accept :) I'm meeting with Stacy for a bit this week privately to bring her up to speed.

Quick update....still awaiting word from Hoy re: book talk in Second Life. We may end up having to find a different author. I'm open to suggestions....I know Ralph has been reading a new book by a Kansas author about sustainable agriculture, so that is a possibility.

In the meantime, I am working with Rocky and Cindy on a series of discussions of children's literature and we are starting out with two picture books that address gender roles: "And Tango Makes Three" and "Uncle Bobby's Wedding." If you would like to get involved in this project let me know.

ALSO if you have a hankering for some in-world activities, let me know and I will help coordinate. There are all sorts of classes and book discussions all the the time...it's just a matter of knowing where and when. And of course I'm still looking for ideas for displays/exhibits/digital collections for our library!

Open house final report

Sorry I didn't get any pictures at the open house...I was a little nervous cause I was responsible for the introductions etc. Sara was able to come, and I'm guessing there may have been 15 people there...a smaller turnout than I had expected, but it was our first time for this event. The presentations were extremely interesting and I learned a lot about our neighbors on Talis. Our sim manager Teo arranged for a DJ for danceing after the program. Here is the final text I used for the presentation about our project:


My Second Life name is Leeorie Alter and in real life I am a reference librarian in the adult services department of Olathe Public Library. We are a mid-sized library in a metro area just outside Kansas City in the U.S., and those of us on the adult services staff do a little bit of everything, including collection development and maintenance and programming as well as staffing the reference desk.
I became interested in SL a little over a year ago after reading about it and became even more intrigued after hearing about how libraries were becoming active here. Initially I came in just to look around, with hopes that my library might eventually be interested in an SL presence. But when spots became available on the new Talis Cybrary Island sim, I took the chance my library would eventually back me up and committed us to a project here. In May we received formal backing from my library to experiment with this project and established a committee.
Members of this committee are myself, Sadie Ecksol (who in real life is our Library Specialist for Electronic Resources); Hyen Lowe, who is our Support Services Tech Extradonaire, adult services librarian Alexandria Gumbo; young adult librarian Tasmine Andel; children’s librarian Anastasia Bookmite; and Mary Linse, support services supervisor.
It is still a work in progress. Like so many others, we are inventing what library services mean in a virtual environment……particularly for public libraries. While we explore what is possible in Second Life, we are also offering interested staff members a chance to explore the possibilities and enjoy the richness of the network possibilities. Our most exciting project to date is a collaboration with the State Library of Kansas and the Topeka-Shawnee County Kansas public library to bring a Kansas author into Second Life for a program. We hope to have that program this fall, along with related exhibits at the library here on Talis, where you will also find information about the real life Olathe Public Library as well as links to our catalog and additional information about the community.
We hope you will take time to visit us and take a look around. I would be happy to answer questions during the break.

Text of open house presentation

Here is the text of the presentation I'll be giving at the open house on Sunday. Please leave comments or email me with suggested revisions, changes etc.

"My Second Life name is Leeorie Alter and in real life I am a reference librarian in the adult services department of Olathe Public Library. We are a mid-sized library, and those of us on the adult services staff do a little bit of everything, including collection development and maintenance and programming as well as staffing the reference desk.

I became interested in SL a little over a year ago after reading about it and became even more intrigued after hearing about how libraries were becoming active here. Initially I came in just to look around, with hopes that my library might eventually be interested in an SL presence. But when spots became available on the new Talis Cybrary Island sim, I took the chance my library would eventually back me up and committed us to a project here. In May I received formal backing from my library to experiment with this project.

It is still a work in progress. Like so many others, we are inventing what library services mean in a virtual environment……particularly for public libraries. While we explore what is possible in Second Life, we are also offering interested staff members a chance to explore the possibilities and enjoy the richness of the network possibilities. Our most exciting project to date is a collaboration with the State Library of Kansas and the Topeka-Shawnee County Kansas public library to bring a Kansas author into Second Life for a program. We hope to have that program this fall, along with related exhibits at the library here on Talis, where you will also find information about the real life Olathe Public Library as well as links to our catalog and additional information about the community.

We hope you will take time to visit us and take a look around. I would be happy to answer questions during the break.

Open house plans

Open house on Talis sim (including the OPL building) will begin at 4 p.m. SLT (6 p.m. our time) on Wednesday, Aug. 13. All residents of the island, including US, will give short presentations at the colleseum, followed by a half hour break from 6 to 6:30 SLT (8 to 8:30 our time) for tours and ending with dancing beginning at 7 p.m SLT (9 p.m. our time).

Please try to be there at least for the presentation part of it. I would think you could count this as work time. I'll present for our library but it would be really nice to introduce you all, and the presentations should be really interesting. some of the presentations may be in voice (including ours) so be sure and have your headphones handy. If you don't have SL at home, maybe you could take a laptop home with you? I will be setting up here in the board room if anyone would like to join me there.