Alliance Second Life Library 2.0

Alliance Library System, one of nine multitype library systems in Illinois, located in East Peoria, Illinoiis would like to submit the Alliance Second Life Library 2.0 for the Talis MashUp Competition. There is a blog at http://www.secondlifelibrary.blogspot.com, but its primary use is to share news with participating librarians and those interested in the project. There is also a drupal website at http://www.infoisland.org which all librarians can contribute information to.

No one library could successfully manage or create what a number of librarians from all over the world have done in three months. We started the project in April 2006 as an opportunity to test the role of the library in a virtual world, Second Life. (http://www.secondlife.com) Second Life is not so much a game as a 3-D virtual world where residents can do much of what they can in real life such as purchase land, buy a home, visit a museum, go dancing, shopping, take classes, and visit the library. We started out with a few people and a small plot of land. We had a donation of an island, almost two hundred people join our google group and a regular group of 25-30 people to work on the project. We are not yet quite where we want to be, but thanks to the efforts of many, we are getting there.

On Info Island, we now have a central library with reference services. We are getting ready to test virtual reference services with OCLC Question Point. We have created reference sources which link from "books" and "computers" to the web. OCLC has provided us trials of databases such as ABI-Inform, Periodical Abstracts, and WorldCat, so we also have a number of "computers" in the library linked to these databases and are offering classes on how to use them. We offer public domain audio books in an MP3 like device residents can take and listen to and a small collection but growing collection of "books" both from out of world and created in Second Life residents. Robin Chamberlin created an anime/manga section and is planning programs on this genre. Abbey Zenith has created a genealogy area with computers linked to web-based genealogy resources residents can use. We also have several special displays from special collections in the real library world. A collection on author Vachel Lindsay with period furniture, an audio poem of his, and pictures of his life from the Illinois Digital Archives are available for people to view. A display on Father Augustus Tolton, the first African American priest, from Quincy University, is available for viewing with pictures from his life, a movie of a reenactment of his mother Martha Tolton, and links to biographies on the web.

Info Island also now has a high rise building with a theater which will seat 50, a business and government documents section created by Abbey Zenith, Alaskan Nighbor, and Trixie Enzyme, again with a number of resources in these topics. A group lead by Shadow Fugazi is putting together a display from the Library of Congress on the signing of the Delcaration of Independence. In a few weeks this will be ready for viewing. With the permission of LOC, the display is created with digital docccuments from their website, period furniture, and audio.

Namro Orman, from the Netherlands, has created a medical library presence with displays and links to medical information. We had a two-month trial from Ebsco on Ebsco Consumer Health Complete and Maxito Ricardo offered several sessions on how to use and search that database and also on how to search the Internet for health information and how to evaluate that information. We provided tours of these resources to several special medical groups such as stroke victims and are working with them to create a set of customized resources they can use. Logann8 Lombardi, an architectural student is building a new medical library which should be completed in three weeks.

Second Life Library offers monthly book discussions by Maxito Ricardo; we have offered presentations from several authors who have published in and out of world such as Steve Miller and Sharon Lee; Pamela Witt and Wilbur Woodward; and Lopayza Moonlight, an author who created a world in Second Life based on her writings.

We also have important, relevant partners on the island we work with. TechSoup has joined us and recently produced a directory of non-profits in Second Life and hosted our first mixed reality event where people attended the event in person or in Second Life. Milosun Czervic runs the ICT (Information and Communications Technology Library) which has a wonderful set of free tools and scripts for education in Second Life such as whiteboards and other tools. We are getting a lot of interest from educators who visit Info Island to see what the library has to offer and what the ICT library can provide in providing education. There is more and more educational activity in Second Life and we are giving lots of tours to educators who plan to teach college level courses in Second Life. In the fall, we will have two real life universities teaching classes in Second Life whose academic libraries will have a local presence on Info Island and contribute to the overall staffing and services of the island.

The residents in Caledon, a beautiful nineteenth century area where residents wear Victorian period clothing and where buildings, shops, and furniture area are also from the Victorian, era, wanted a library in their area. A resident donated land and a 19th century library and we are working with them to provide a 19th century library which will work closely with Info Island.

The latest and one of the newest mash-ups we are able to offer on Info Island is an in-world search on the Amazon book site. This was developed by the Life2Life bookstore and we invited them to have an area on the island so that our visitors can search for books we do not have. With this tool created by Tabatha Hegel and Hugh Dalgleish, visitors can use Second Life text chat to search a title, author or keyword resulting in five results with a picture of the book. They are also going to add a stock listing information.

Thanks to Eiseldora Reisman and Planetneutral Fackler, we also have presences in Facebook and Flickr. This fall under the leadership of Ray Lightworker and BlueWings Hayek, we will be planning a library in teen second life. The goal of these projects is to put the library where the user is - on the Internet - to provide vital services there and also to promote the local library. The technology is moving quickly, we are trying to keep up and make our library a place people want to be in a virtual world. There are many questions to be asked and answered, but hopefully we will be able to share some information on what a virtual twenty-first century library will be.

All the names mentioned in this nomination are Second Life names. Thank you for your consideration.