IL2007: What's Happening in IL Space?

The Sunday night event was at the Monterey Public Library and was an intro to several themes that are going to occur at the conference.

Jeremy Kemp, Lori Bell and Kitty Pope talked about Second Life.

• Jeremy talked about how San Jose State University is using Second Life. They got into SL early and have been innovative. What was a bit disappointing is that their space in SL seems to really mirror their RL space.
  
• Lori and Kitty talked about the work the Alliance Library System has been doing in SL. There are 37 library and partner islands. There are 50+ libraries in SL. There are 600+ library people in the Alliance SL Google Group and 700+ working in SL, most on a volunteer basis. And these are people from around the world.

Aaron Schmidt talked about gaming. It's a $11 billion industry. Games are about content and learning. He believes that libraries should support gaming and talked about events that libraries could hold for all age groups.

Amanda Etches-Johnson talked about a couple tools that libraries are using to provide more services to their patrons. For example, becoming an Amazon affiliate or doing readers advisory through Facebook ("I Read" Facebook Application).

These were all quick 10-minute presentations. Teasers. Then there was a wine and cheese reception that allowed us all to talk and mingle before heading to dinner.

How many people were there? I didn't count, but definitely more than 100 I think.

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