You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2007.
Apparently Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is going to provide millions in funding to school libraries, allowing them to purchase more books and hire more librarians. It wold be great if it’s true. Read more here. Did I mention that we’re about to have an election?
I recently saw a playstation commercial that had gaming in a library. It’s quite funny and I’ll post a link as soon as I find it on youtube. They may be joking about a gaming room in a library but this may well be what we see frequently in libraries in the near future.
Second Life should be approached with caution by academic institutions as there are numerous ramifications to consider. Second Life is not always a peaceful, quiet place - it is filled with sex, gambling, and griefers and depending on personalities, one may become addicted to the virtual world. We can control spaces we own in Second Life but we can not prevent students from leaving our space and entering more virtually dangerous areas. As academics, we must consider what it means to bring a student into this atmosphere. This is not the first time academia has encountered this muddy area though. The Internet’s birth is similar in a number of ways - it started out clunky and often with sex and gambling as a major portion of content. As with Second Life, the Internet can be an addictive space. We have since learned to work in this space and to use it effectively. In fact, many of us cant imagine working without it. Perhaps we will be the same with virtual worlds in the future.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently had an article cautioning academic use of Second Life. I think that it is important to consider what it means to bring students into Second Life, what are the ethical concerns of this virtual world? That being said, I don’t think that that should scare us away from exploration. We need to caution and educate students as to what it means to be in a virtual world - what are the protocols, how can we behave in a virtual world. One of the important parts of exploration is discussion and we should have a discussion at all levels - departmental, administrative and campus wide. Consider what it means to you and your students to be in a virtual world and approach with caution.
Second Life has been the subject of praise and contempt, and rightly so. Second Life has a number of issues (ie. stability) but also offers us some interesting opportunities (ie. distance education). I have admitted that I am still in the exploration phase of Second Life after a year and that it still needs a lot of work before I’ll be completely sold on this virtual world. That being said, I also find that I have to defend my exploration of Second Life.
A recent post on the Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty blog notes that talented librarians are devoting time to a leisure world rather than doing good things in the real world. I have a couple of problems with this statement. First of all, while Second Life is certainly a leisure world, many librarians are not working on leisure activities. We are trying to supply needed resources (ie. links to library resources) that may have gone unnoticed to a new user group. The user group in Second Life may not be the user group we see in the libraries and we need to reach all patrons. Higher education has taken an active interest in Second Life and academic libraries are looking at ways to support the classes, as we would in the real world. Being in Second Life is a point of need issue. The post quotes a letter sent to the American Libraries journal. This letter assumes that Second Life consumes all free time. While some individuals become addicted to the virtual world, many of us are there for work and continue to have a life outside of the virtual world. I still have enough time to teach a distance education course and if I was really ambitious, other volunteer projects. Other librarians are not as lucky as I am and are exploring the virtual world on their own time. They recognize virtual worlds as a technology that needs to be explored and are devoted to helping the profession stay current, even on their own time. I can’t speak for their free time but most I know do not spend all of their time in the virtual world.
Second Life is not something that everyone can understand. Many of us, myself included, are still trying to understand the importance of virtual worlds. Virtual worlds however, can not be ignored. If we do not stay current and examine new technologies, we will be blindsided and be in a constant state of catch-up. Second Life is part of my job, not my sole job, and I do not feel I am doing a disservice by exploring opportunities in this virtual world. Something will replace Second Life but at least we’ll be ready for it.
Well, the campus is thriving again, the student centre is chaos, and there is noise again in the library. Yes, it is the first day of classes. Yesterday was our annual Clubsfest and we handed out 1125 waterbottles (pic to come) in an hour and a half! The bottles promoted both our campus libraries and the local public library. Students were asking for them all day! Guess we’ll have to order more next year, although I hope to do more with our welcome week, something more akin to the Ubiquitous Librarians‘ events.
It’s a busy fall ahead, with my distance course to teach, instruction to do, new responsibilities as a liaison and presentations to prepare for.
We’ve been busy at the library. We’ve relaxed our food policy, started an online group study room booking system, are constantly updating our website to function better and are working have a new popular fiction collection. And, I’m going to buy I bought a Second Life Island today! We have 5 new librarians with 2 more on the way and 4 interns to help shake things up too. It’s going to be a busy and interesting fall!
update: I forgot to mention that we added Amazon links to our catalogue and have gotten our first self-check-out machine! - there’s just so much happening!
