Yes, I'll need coffee and lots of it this month! I'll be speaking in New York State, Florida and California all within a two week period. My complete schedule is on the left side of this blog, with new events being added frequently.Digitization related presentations and workshops include:
- Oct. 19: Gearing Up! Digitization 101, Tallahassee, FL (SLA-CFC)
- Oct. 29: Federated Searching Feedback: Walking the Talk?, Monterey, CA (Internet Librarian)
- Nov. 7: Copyright Basics, Jamestown, NY (CCLS)
As you know, I frequently speak on social networking tools and specifically Second Life. (There seemed to only a few of us who will truly roam the countryside and talk about Second Life.) Here is a list of the workshops and presentations I'm giving this fall on social networking tools:
- Oct. 17: Social Networking Tools, Buffalo, NY (NYLA)
- Oct. 18: Social Networking Tools and Librarians, Tallahassee, FL (NFLA/SLA)
- Oct. 23: Social Networking: Tools for Connecting Staff & Patrons, Lake Worth, FL (SEFLIN)
- Oct. 27: Libraries on the MUVE in Second Life, Monterey, CA (Internet Librarian)
- Oct. 30: Building Communities in Second Life, Monterey, CA (Internet Librarian)
- Nov. 6: Introduction to Second Life, Buffalo, NY (WNYLRC)
- Nov. 16: Introduction to Second Life, Potsdam, NY (NNYLN)
- Dec. 11: Introduction to Second Life, Rochester, NY (RRLC)
Technorati tags:
Copyright, 
Digitization, 
IL2007, 
Second Life, 
Social Networking Tools
2 comments:
You say that you "speak frequently" on social networking tools. You don't, however, give any clues on this blog as to how Second Life works for collaboration or anything of the sort.
When you speak about Second Life, what picture do you paint. How is the content or the platform relevant?
How are the restrictions and the changes in the TOS that the parent company, Linden Lab, is making affecting your views on this?
I have chosen not to speak about Second Life in-depth here, since this blog's primary focus is on digitization. I did write a post in 2006 talking about how I wanted digitized materials to be displayed and that post was based on Second Life. I hope that how we display digitized materials in the future will be very different than our current paradigm. I would like to run a query that returned a set of images, then be able to have them displayed in a virtual gallery that my avatar could walk around.
Some people believe that Second Life (SL) and other virtual worlds may lead to a new web interface/browser that is based on this technology. The technology, though, will need a lot of work for that to be possible (e.g., less resource intensive).
Given that virtual worlds are multiplying -- and that there are rumors of "big players" entering the market like Google -- then this is a technology that we should become familiar with, since it is not going away. And if this technology does lead to a virtual world-type browser, then what we learn now will help us in the future.
So it is the platform that is most relevant. With SL, it is the users (residents) who create the content and without that content, SL would be boring.
Generally, when I talk about Second Life (SL), I'm speaking to librarians and so I focus on the work that librarians are doing in SL and why the find the environment attractive. (If you have read this article, you may want to do so.) How libraries and library services are being built in SL is a very different paradigm with most of the effort being truly collaborative and accomplished by volunteers. (Yes, some people are getting paid by the real life (RL) institutions, but it is amazing to see how willing people have been to volunteer their time and talents.) I believe that how we think about space and services in SL will impact our library space and services in RL - maybe not immediately, but in the long term.
Yes, I know that Linden Labs has changed its terms of service (TOS) agreement. My view is that they have made some things more obvious in the TOS, than they were before. They have talked about changing what info is needed in order to get an account and may have changed some info needed for a non-basic account. That would help them to know who is using SL, especially if there are any concerns.
Since safety and privacy are huge issues with people, whatever SL and the other virtual worlds can do to help in that regard are good things.
Do I think that SL will last forever? Probably not. Undoubtedly -- at some point -- another virtual world will become the next big thing. However, for now, it has captured the attention of many people (including libraries, academic institutions and businesses) and that, I believe, is a good thing.
Since I do spend speak frequently on social networking tools and help several organizations understand how to use the tools better, I've been encouraged to launch a web site specifically on social networking tools. The site went "live" last week and I've been getting feedback on it, and rolling it out slowly. The site is eNetworking101.com. Eventually it will have its own blog. (I actually blog already on social networking tools for SLA, so I've got content that I can repurpose in order to launch a blog for that site.)
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