I had a very productive and motivating meeting with Jon Winet and Jim Elmborg on Wednesday (10/3). JIm is quite knowledgeable about Second Life. Also, it is clear that he has been thinking about ways to get more involved in Second Life. Here are my notes from our lively meeting:
1) We can use Second Life as a venue to promote both the Virtual Writing University - Experimental Wing and the UI School of Information Science.
How?
2) Hold virtual book readings of authors from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Use the collection that is located in the VWU archive.
How would this happen in Second Life?
3) Contact those in charge of ALA's Second Life presence. Ask them if they are interested in providing some land where the readings can take place.
How does this promote the UI SLIS program?
4) Jim would also like to hold virtual office hours where he could interact with students and colleagues. He has a house, he just needs a space to place it. Jim also mentioned that we could pitch an idea for a community space where multiple library science members held office hours. This idea could promote UI SLIS because it would better organize the meeting of librarians in Second Life. The Second Life world is not necessarily easy to navigate. If we can get a scheduled and centrally located location for many people to meet, this could help ALA get more use out of their Second Life presence.
Any other details I'm leaving out?
5) Jon described my duties for getting this initiative off the ground as "project management". I understand this as coordinating actions to achieve a stated goal. The goal for the rest of this semester working on this project is A) to establish a space in Second Life to hold book readings, B) establish a space in Second Life for group office hours.
The actions I need to take to make this happen mostly involve talking with individuals involved with ALA in Second Life. I am guessing this could be a stressful task, I may not get anywhere. I wrote the first draft of my proposal for this project:
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I am a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Iowa. The area of concentration for this fellowship is digital librarianship. I am currently working with Jon Winet (Head of Intermedia Area within Art and Art History at the University of Iowa) and James Elmborg (Director of the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Iowa).
Our goal is to establish a presence on Second Life for both the UI Virtual Writing University - Experimental Wing [http://research-intermedia.art.uiowa.edu/wing/] and the SLIS program at UI [http://slis.uiowa.edu:16080/~slisweb/]. Our two primary goals are:
1) to provide a space in Second Life for book readings from Iowa Writer’s Workshop faculty and graduates [http://www.uiowa.edu/~iww/about.htm]. These recordings are housed in the Virtual Writing Universtiy Archive. [ http://at-lamp.its.uiowa.edu/virtualwu/index.php/archive/]
2) to provide a space for virtual meetings with James Elmborg [akin to office hours] and other interested members of the library community (both working librarians and library school faculty members).
Our workgroup is inquiring the possibility of finding space within the ALA Arts InfoIsland area or nearby for us to implement these goals.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Mark Anthoney [IMLS fellow, UI SLIS]
Jon Winet [Head, UI Intermedia | Director VWU – Experimental Wing]
James Elmborg [Director, UI SLIS]
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If everything goes smoothly, I will be working more hands-on with the Second Life program. I will be implementing the building skills I have learned within the program. I will also need to know how to provide streaming audio within Second Life. I will need to figure out where to advertise for the readings (there is an ad board in the ALA Second Life reference desk with adverts). I will also need to implement a procedure for having the readings in Second Life so that another graduate student can manage the readings once I have moved on to another project.
If my goals do not turn out to be feasible. I will be researching other web technologies in preparation for Jon Winet's Goal 2010 South Africa! project.
