site setup for the Nicodemus program

Here are some pictures I took today after finishing (I hope!) the set up for the Nicodemus program (Saturday, 2 p.m. CST, 4 p.m. SLT).

Couldn't resist those adorable draft mules....so, LETS HAVE A CONTEST (amongst us....)

Name the Mule Contest: Step 1, submit names to me via email. I will post on blog; Step 2, vote for your favorite name. Creator of winning name will receive $100L! Contest will run until it ends.....

Celebrate Kansas Party a Great Success!

Our belated Kansas Day celebration on Saturday night was a HUGE success. I'll check with Rocky to see if he has a final head count, but about 30 people came and while the majority were our friends from library land, there were at least a half dozen who came just because we billed it as a Kansas event!

Rocky, Cindy and I joined forces to pull the thing together with relatively little planning, but it all seemed to work. We used the vacant yard space on the north side of the Olathe building. I made the sunflower dance floor, Rocky and Cindy contributed photos of Kansas and famous Kansans as well as a wonderful buffet table and Cindy and I worked on the layout of the party area. Throughout the evening (started at 6 p.m. SLT and the last person left about 8 p.m. SLT) people were encouraged to visit all three library buildings and they were surrounded on all sides by reminders of all things Kansas. Wouldn't be surprised if this becomes an annual event.

future projects and photos!

At left, Brian is doing the hoochey coochey for me and a friend on the roof terrace of the new building.

I took a ton of pictures of the new place but won't post so many here as I think you have all had a chance to visit it. You should all have LMs to the new location....you can delete the one in your inventory that lists Olathe at Talis...we are now at Cybrary City II.

Thank BrianA when you see him...he installed our people counter free of charge.

PHOTOS!!!
Rather than hunt up good pictures to post int he library, how about if we all take turns taking photos with the digital camera? Somebody (me? Hyen? All of us?) will need to learn how to upload them to a hard drive. Next meeting I will teach you all how to upload a texture to SL and h ow to put a texture on a prim. So keep in mind what photos you would like to use that would be representive of us in RL.

FAME AND FORTUNE....
There is a story about our move in RezLibris (http://www.rezlibris.com)

PARTY LIKE A KANSAN!
Rocky, Cindy and I are trying to get a Kansas Day party organized. It would have to be the weekend before Kansas Dayl, as Rocky starts teaching (cataloging) at Emporia the weekend of Kansas Day. So I figure it will be the weekend of Jan. 24. Let me know if you have any ideas for the party. Of course there will be dancing, and someone is making us balloons with sunflowers on them that we can give away. The state library will pay for the balloons. This would be a chance to show off our new buildings etc.

NICODEMUS
The director of the Nicodemus Historical Society will be moving onto Cybrary City II with a Nicodemus build. I am looking into the possibility of getting him or her (not sure about that yet!) to give a Black History Month program for us like we did for Christmas, although this one would be entirely from SL, projected onto a screen at ICB. I'll keep you updated.

NEW TOYS!
I have installed a bulletin board that allows anyone to leave us a message that we can click on and read later. All of you who are members of the Olathe group also have permission to delete messages. Delete by clicking on the message, click on "more" and then "delete." I also installed a pager for myself, and you are welcome to install pagers for yourselves if you decide you want to at some point. It will contact me if I am in world but not at the library. I'm still looking for one that will send me an email. The pager object will also accept notecards. There are teleporters installed for the rooftop areas to the north and south. And on the north roof there is (besides a pink dance ball!) a widescreen TV. Hyen is looking into posting a library video there.
Jukeboxes on the new land are problematic. You can all go to about land, media, and cut and paste in URLs for your favorite music streams. I'll show you more about this when we next meet, or ask me to show you how to do it. Not hard. As soon as I have time I'll give you all notecards with music URLs you can use for different kinds of music.

EXPERIMENT!
You all have the necessary permissions to build on the new parcel so knock yourself out. experiment all you want, just clean up your mess by taking items into your inventory or deleting them. Let me know if you have some additions/modifications you would like to make permanent.....I've been playing aroundwith a flower garden at the back of the building. If we end up needing the prims I can delete all those plants etc. Right now we have about 234 prims remaining to play with.

NEXT MEETING
Need to schedule. Let me know what works for you.....

Readings for Christmas on the Prairie

I am going to read an excerpt from A Little House Sampler edited by William T. Anderson. It's a collection of writings from Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane. The piece I am reading is called "Home for Christmas" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I also found a piece by Harriet E. Adams within Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier by Joanna Stratton. Harriet's father, Franklin G. Adams, was the first secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society.

I timed the Laura piece at about 6:30 minutes. The Harriet Adams piece is about 5:30 minutes.

I also have four other little excerpts which also come from Pioneer Women that are about 1 minute in length each.

Now, to find the perfect hair!

Program plans!

Photo is of me at work on the library. Stop by when you get a chance....spent much of the weekend working on it. I've added a slideshow that is now located on teh wall over the windows.
Here's the scoop:
*Site director for the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop will be in this week with some additional material for readings. If you haven't seen anything you want to read yet, we can get some more stuff from him. I need for you all to time your readings and let me know approximately how long they are.
*I am working on a "script" introduction.
*This weekend I made a poster for posting around SL...it has an imbeded notecard with more details about the program. The program has been posted on the librarians' google calendar of events and is posted at the reference desk in SL. I'll be asking for notices to go out to groups shortly before we start on the 16th.
*Daisyblue Hefferman gave us a little pot that gives out free hot chocolate. This saved us a little money and a LOT of prims, so if you see her it would be nice to thank her.
*I have arranged the room with stools for the readers to sit on. I also have a "reading to an audience" poseball if you want to use it. I'm trying to set it up so the readers have to move as little as possible, but I need you ALL to take time to visit the library and try and the stools and give me any feedback...now is the time to speak up if you have preferences or concerns.
*my preference would be to meet with each of you individually for just a few minutes to go over the program generally and check out your headsets and sound set up, and then meet as a group either this week or next week for an abbreviated run through. Once I know who is reading what I'll make up an order for the readings.
*I've given you all $300 Lindens to spend on period clothing. Tina and I got some nice dresses from the vendors at Deadwood. Remind me to give you a landmark for Deadwood, or you can do a search for it.

New ideas and staff day presentation

The picture at left is intended to put you in the mood to think about a holiday season programming idea....Ana (Stacy) suggested we try a readers theatre type presentation, and in the process of thinking about that I had an inspiration! (sort of). To keep our program somehow unique and identifiable as a Kansas/Olathe endeavor, how about if we do readings but use some of the real life text left as diaries and memoirs of early Kansas settlers? You can find a ton of this type of material at http://www.kancoll.org/index.php, the Kansas collection of Carrie:an electronic library, which is the digital library created by the University of Kansas. We might want to collaborate with the state library and Topeka on this. We could decorate to our hearts desire in the library, or take it to the colleseum to accomodate more people (although I thi nk we could get a pretty good crowd seated at our own library.) Give it some thought. I talked to Ralph about it and he might even come in world to help out as a reader! I will be emailing you all a sample collection of potential readings.

We are set I think for staff day. We only have a half hour, so there isn't a whole lot we can do with it. I will take about 10 minutes to go through the power point Tina did, then we will introduce ourselves and tour the library, leave a few minutes for Q and A. I would like all of us to be in world if possible, and I think we can do that. You will just have to find a terminal with Sl on it in the library. I will ask that you all wait outside the library and then when I say your name come inside, OK? at the end we can all dance to show them how much fun it can be. If that is ok with everyone. Does this sound ok?

Tonight I started my in-world class, offered through the Univeristy of Illinois library school. Class is every Wednesday night for five weeks, and it is called "Setting Up Your Library in Second Life: an Appliled Approach." This is going to be a truely excellent class. I will have some notes and other stuff and can send you copies via email if you want. Let me know if you would like a copy.

Tallyho!

Idea for Staff Day Presentation

It might be fun to make a game out the presentation. If Lori introduces us and we introduce ourselves from in-world, we could not give our real name, just our avie name. Then we can each talk about what we have been doing in SL. At the end of the presentation, staff can try to figure out who is who, since we haven't told them our real names and we are not in the room. We might want to give out small prizes to whoever can figure it out. Don't have the logistics figured out yet, but thought it sounded like a fun idea.

Leeorie asked me to post some pictures and the only one I have is this old one of me (now i'm a little less....um.....tan). I'll try to come up with something better in the future.

-Ana, aka Stacey