The Libraries of Second Life: How MUVE Could Shape the Futureof Digital Libraries

Miguel E Ruiz (Moderator & organizer)University of North Texas, School of Library and Information Sciences. P.O. Box 311068.Denton, TX 76203-1068. Email: meruiz@unt.edu (SL alias: Amadeus Reinard)

Allison Brueckner,cAliCo Information Consulting, Principal, and Dexter District Library, Technology Librarian.8040 Fourth Street, Dexter, MI 48130. Email: allison.brueckner@comcast.net (SL alias:Teofila Matova)

S. Thompson,Collier County Public Library, 2385 Orange Blossom Drive. Naples, FL 34109. Email:hypatia.dejavu@gmail.com (SL alias: Hypatia Dejavu)

Lili Luo,San Jose State University, School of Library and Information Science. One WashingtonSquare, Clark Hall, 417. San Jose, CA 95192-0029 Email: lililuo@slis.sjsu.edu (SL Alias:Foxfish Falta),

Brian O’Connor,University of North Texas, School of Library and Information Sciences. P.O. Box 311068.Denton, TX 76203-1068. Email: Brian.O'Connor@unt.edu

Sponsors: SIG/DL, SIG/LT

This panel will present an overview of Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVE), specificallySecond Life (SL), and its applications in library services and education. The panel includespractitioners as well as educators that have been developing applications in Second Life. Theywill be presenting current applications of SL in Libraries and virtual campuses, and discussusability issues associated to these environments.

Introduction

Second Life is one of several Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) that have been made popular inthe past four years. A MUVE allows simultaneous access to multiple participants that representthemselves as avatars, share virtual contexts, interact with digital objects, communicate with each other,and participate in experiences that simulate real world contexts. The potential of this type of environmentfor education has been recognized by several authors and there are a number of initiatives that havecreated or are in the process of creating virtual university campuses in Second Life (Dieterle and Clarke,2008). Although it is still too early to tell whether Second Life or other MUVEs would become part of the

main stream in education there are some positive indicators that these environments could be used as asuccessful learning environment. Due to the ability to allow reach interactions these environments areconductive for constructive and experiential learning. Another important feature is the ability to supportmulti channel distance learning (Luo and Kemp, 2008).

Libraries have also been embracing Second Life as a form of extension of their online services (Bell et.al,2007) (see for example, Infoisland.org). According to Bell et al. (2007) around 5,000 avatars per day visitthe Second Life Library which shows that there is a need for library services in SL.

Panel Description:

We have put together a panel that includes professionals who are currently developing services in theSecond Life Library, and educators that have had experience teaching in this environment and creatingnew ways to facilitate learning using MUVEs. The panel will cover the following topics:

Overview of MUVEs and Second lifeCurrent applications of second life in libraries and educationLibraries 3.0Discussion about usability, as well as the user’s perception and experiences on Second LifeLibraries / campuses

Allison Brueckner (SL alias Teofila Matova) will be giving an introduction to Second Life and MUVEs andthe current developments related to the extension of library and information communication technologyservices in Second Life. Teofila is an active reference library for the Second Life Library 2.0 project; sheheads the Colonel Exrex Somme Reference Collection for the Whitehorn Memorial Library on a 19thCentury sim (VictoriaCity, Caledon); Teofila also owns her own art gallery, A.R.t Galerie, and is simestate manager for the new Talis Cybrary Island sim.

S Thompson (Hypatia Dejavu) will be talking about issues related to virtual references, public educationand public interest projects in virtual environments. Hypatya is the current coordinator of the referenceservice department in the Second Life Library project.

Lili Luo will be taking about the potential, advantages and disadvantages and challenges related to usingSecond Life in Education. She also will cover usability issues both for developers of new applications andobjects as well as users in Second Life.

Dr. Brian O’Connor will be talking about “Breaking the Fourth Wall” a new project that he and Dr. RichAnderson are developing. Breaking the Fourth Wall is an interdisciplinary effort to develop a computerbased toolkit to aid humanities scholars with access, research, and pedagogy with film and new mediadocuments and document collections. The work is based on decades of work in film theory woventogether operant laboratory work on behavior analysis. The BFW team includes scholars in InformationScience, Film Theory, and Comparative Literature. The interface for the project, Fourth Wall, is animmersive environment built on top of the Second Life platform. The project includes design of an initialtoolkit for computational analysis, a set of seed research projects, and a set of seminars and workshopsfor presenting the toolkit and its possibilities, as well as soliciting suggestions and critiques.

We plan to have a parallel session of this panel in Second Life so that SL attendants as well as ASIS&Tparticipants can see the presentations and participate in the QA session.

Bibliography:

Bell, L., Pope, K., Peters, T. and Galik, B. (2007) Who's on Third in Second Life?: From Library 2.0 toLibrary 3-D. Online 31:(4), 14-18.

Dieterle, E., & Clarke, J. (2008). Multi-user virtual environments for teaching and learning. In M.Pagani (Ed.), Encyclopedia of multimedia technology and networking (2nd ed.) Hershey, PA: IdeaGroup, Inc.

Luo, L. and Kemp, J. (2008) Second Life: Exploring the Immersive Instructional Venue for Library andInformation Science Education. Manuscript submitted for publication.