Final Despatches from the Western Front (of SL)

Demelza Trefoil's experiences in SL have been overwhelmingly positive! While taking account of problems in this 'world' (technical problems, access, SL loneliness, etiquette, etc.) many of my blog entries reveal possiblities for staff, students and visiting speakers to make effective (and lively) use of a virtual environment for teaching and learning. Recording experiences using a blog lends an immediacy to an assignment like this, and it is surely in the spirit of Web 2.0 to blog while exploring and assessing a virtual world...

Second Life has become a great networking tool for me, to which I will return in the future. I still cannot get over the fact that I can 'speak' to librarians from all over the world (sometimes while dancing with them!).

The opportunities for librarians to exploit Second Life seem limited only by imagination, time resources (and time differences) and ubiquitous problems of access... Even if SL dwindles, I believe there will be other virtual worlds in the future. It's a great idea for all of us fledgling librarians to cut our teeth on this one, so we'll be ready for any more to come!
Demelza missed the parade in 'Dublin' on St. Patrick's Day. By the time I got to 'O'Connell Bridge' everyone was already gone! Libraries must try not to miss out on the Second Life parade...

How are we all going to squeeze into Mary Burke's office?

On Wednesday, 26th March a few of us attended Akiiki Vella's virtual office hour in SL. This was great! All of us had questions about assignments, and most were quite minor points but all of us received answers in under an hour.

Trying to see a lecturer can be difficult at times, while attempting to synchronise with office hours and lecture times, etc. I'm never usually in UCD on a Wednesday, but today in SL, around 12 of us got to 'squeeze' into Mary Burke's virtual office at the same time. Avatars could come and go, or stay for the hour. I would have lost a lot more time out of my day at a busy time of year, if I'd been trying to get into UCD to see Mary Burke in person. It must save the lecturer's time as well, rather than having to answer 12 emails, phone calls or visitors, many with multiple questions (and probably most students have similar concerns), and it saves a lecturer being stalked around the campus by over-anxious students...

There is a noticeable change in behaviour also. The frantic typing and chit chat of earlier events are now gone. I think we're all a lot more comfortable and confident in an SL environment. Everyone is more patient, and Akiiki is making sure that issues are handled one at a time.

Now the problem is that not all of the class are involved in Second Life, so they missed out on this session. But, just as with other RL sessions that class members miss out on, we can bring others up to speed in person, of if we hear people worrying aloud about questions which were answered in the virtual office hour, we can set their minds at rest.

Virtual office hours work! I hope there will be more, especially as the BIG PROJECT starts to really take shape, as I'm sure we'll all have another bundle of questions and minor quibbles...

DUDE! Where are all the UCLA students?

Demelza, Bertie and Clarina waiting in vain for UCLA students on Wednesday 12th March. They must have gone surfing...

Still no sign of the UCLA students on Wednesday 19th March, but all was not in vain. A large group of SILS students got to use time in SL for an impromptu seminar about our Technology Audit assignment.

I think SL is one of the great untapped resources for any subject or discipline. Personally, I feel that when I'm away from UCD for any length of time, it can be quite isolating. You're beavering away on all manner of assignments, with nobody to talk to. Group emailing works to an extent, but actually I think the group dynamic works well in SL. OK, so you need to keep up with the 'chat' and messages can overlap, but overall, I found our discussion very helpful. It was interesting to see the flow of conversation, and I got a great buzz from throwing out a comment or question and seeing eight other avatars frantically typing away like crazy in a frenzy of response.

The added bonus of a 'tutorial' in SL is that if you lose track for a moment, you can save a 'transcript' of the 'conversation'. I did just that last night, and was able to review it this morning. I had missed out on one or two comments that were very useful...

It seems that some students are finding that SL can be quite a lonely place, so I think it would be good to keep meeting up like this at set times, so that we don't lose the momentum of this whole SL experiment. My group (Elmes) for the BIG project have had a couple of brief meetings in SL when we're off campus, rather than texting or group emailing, and it's working well for us.

Left-click once on this picture to see a 'Who's Who' of attendants...

I took some snapshots as usual last night, and also a screen shot, as this meant I had avatar names over each student. Screen shots are particularly useful for keeping track of attendance at an event, especially as most of us are changing appearance so often. (Also, if you want to make contact with someone after an event, you can search for them under People once you have their avatar name.)

Perhaps when we're all finished with this assignment, we could send the best of our pictures to Akiiki Vella, and she could keep an 'album' to show next year's students, or we could put them on Flickr ourselves...

Magical Mystery Tour and SL Ideas for 2008/2009

On Monday 3rd March, Gortadoo Ewing conducted two tours of Second Life as part of Library Ireland Week. I attended the 7pm tour. Gortadoo was typing away but I couldn't see any words on my screen. I IM-ed Bertie Latte, but he said there was no problem, that he could follow Gortadoo's 'words'. I was freaked out about not being able to 'hear' Gortadoo. (A tiny taste of what it must be like to be deaf in a crowd! Incidentally, wouldn't SL be useful for tutorials, library information sessions, etc. for deaf students/readers...) Then I had a Homer Simpson 'Doh' moment of revelation. At Mary Burke's 1pm lecture, every time I saw Gortadoo, he had muted over his head along with his avatar name. Subconsciously, I had taken this in and assumed that he was moving through us as a library facilitator and didn't want to communicate. I thought it was something he had done to himself. I quickly realised that at some stage, since the Ann Seidl talk, I must have inadvertently 'muted' him on the communicate panel. I foostered around, unmuted him, and thankfully I hadn't missed too much, as I'd already investigated the in-library facilities!

Moving on to the other locations was great craic. Every time I got sent ahead of my usual crew, I offered teleports to Bertie Latte, Roxey Loire, Clarina McMillan & Co. I'd like to think this was because of my helpful and generous nature, but I suspect it was more to do with a sort of SL Paranoia that I'd end up all alone somewhere strange. And ultimately, we did end up somewhere very strange. People swordfighting and wielding flaming torches is all in a day's work for SL, but zombies are quite another matter! I had never experienced such an 'attack'. It was really spooky with the loud noises and
Zombie bite Demelza Trefoil
Zombie bite Bertie Latte
Zombie bite Gortadoo Ewing
etc. scrolling at great speed down the screen. I immediately thought 'virus', as did Bertie. He IM-ed to say he was getting out of Dodge. But Gortadoo Ewing was tremendous. He barged into the zombies one by one, until they had all exploded into red spatter, SL blood, I presume. From that point on, I remained glued to Gortadoo's side - UCD's very own Ninja Librarian!

I've been thinking about tours and SL assignments for next year's SILS students. Maybe it'd be a good idea for each student to take one library or academic venue, and assess all that it has to offer in SL. On one or two tour days (with a schedule for the order avatars would go in) the class group could meet at UCD's SL branch. Every SILS student could be ready with landmarks and notecards to distribute. Each could guide a brief tour around their chosen library venue, plus one other fun venue (not to imply that libraries are not fun!). That way, students could pool their knowledge of what's on offer from a load of different libraries, and hone their in-SL presentation skills. It might be a little like herding cats, but I think it'd be great fun, and you'd learn a lot... (PC access permitting!)

A link to Second Life on the SILS School website might be useful. From my memories of the application process, it was all a little dry and there wasn't much information on the individual modules. A Digital Libraries Billboard in UCD Library's SL Branch could help recruit students to the course in general, and to the Digital Libraries Module in particular, by showing that the Module is right up to date (always assuming that SL doesn't become horribly passe in the meantime).

I've also been wondering about tempting the new intake of all UCD students in September 2008 into SL. I don't know what promotional ideas Gortadoo uses to attract new users, but I'm glad to see that UCD in SL is included as a branch library on the library website. I noticed the Book Bag Blog on the website, and was thinking it'd be very easy for Gortadoo to leave Book Bags, or a similar object, in the 'branch' and then new (or not so new) students could win a prize for a photo of the bag in the most weird and wonderful place in SL. Or perhaps it would be possible to organise an SL Treasure Hunt for Newbies. Prizes wouldn't have to be anything elaborate. Photocopying is very expensive for students, and a CopiPrint card with Euro30 credit gives 540 copies!

One small step for Akiiki Vella, One giant leap for UCD in SL!

Demelza working on her SL presentation delivery at the podium the night before the Library 2.0 lecture...

On Monday 3rd March, Professor Mary Burke (Akiiki Vella) gave UCD's first ever virtual lecture to SILS students. I rushed home after Ian Cornelius' lecture to use my laptop at home. (Having home SL access is great, and it meant that someone else could take my place in the Information Skills Room.) I felt a great buzz at being part of a ground breaking UCD event, with a journalist in attendance, no less!

At the start, there was a bit of a scrum, with students jostling for position, and one winged avatar ploughed straight into the presentation screen. Some students still haven't discovered the delights of IM-ing, and I could cheerfully have murdered the student who kept repeating "Get Lost" from their gestures inventory! Again, as with the Ann Seidl talk, I could feel some 'performance anxiety' about participation assessment, but this soon dissipated as the lecture got going. This time, I was better able to block out irrelevant 'noise' from other students, and concentrate on the lecture itself.


In a RL scenario, the lecturer talks, has a PowerPoint presentation, and asks and answers questions. This format works equally well in SL, but with added value, I think. It seemed so appropriate to be approaching the topic of Library 2.0 from within a virtual environment! I was able to 'take' the links to del.icio.us, the Library Success Wiki, Flickr and WordPress, etc. straight to my desktop.

I believe that the SL setting encourages quieter classmates to contribute a lot more. Maybe there is something liberating about adopting another persona or perhaps it's the 'otherness' of SL that allows students to take on an active, rather than somewhat passive, role in a class.

What did interest me was that during a lecture about Library 2.0 in Second life, argument still rumbles on about who will control information. One student spoke of gatekeepers. While I'm no anarchist, and like my books at home to be in alphabetical (fiction) and subject order (non-fiction) just as much as the next librarian, I've been hearing the term gatekeepers, and people worrying about a loss of control of information, since 10th September 2007, and I'm a little tired of it! I did manage to squeeze in a comment to the effect that the term 'gatekeepers' tends to negate the term 'access'.

SL seems to have a positive effect on me in a heated debate, as I tend to be more measured in what I type, than what I might blurt out in a RL discussion. Also Demelza's face remains serene no matter what happens, so nobody need ever know that I'm groaning aloud in the privacy of my own home...

Buns and Pince-nez? I blame Hollywood!

On Friday 29th February, Ann Seidl, director of The Hollywood Librarian was in town and we got to talk to her in SL! This was all quite exciting, and although we'd had the tutorial from Gortadoo Ewing, he's a UCD staff member, and I felt like this was our first genuine foray into the wider world of SL discussions.

Again, we were all in the Information Skills Room in UCD Library, so there was an amount of kerfuffle going on around me in RL. I felt a certain 'performance anxiety' as I knew our participation would be assessed, so I was eager to ask 'good' questions, while managing not to be jostled off the edge of the library's second floor. Thankfully, I had read up on Ann Seidl and the film in advance, as we were slightly 'cart before the horse' because we hadn't actually seen the film yet.

Grasping the chance to ask a question, or make a comment, can be challenging. It's far more of a free-for-all than in a normal classroom or lecture theatre situation. Often in RL, there is a resounding silence when a class or group is asked if there are any questions. In SL, however, questions and comments were coming thick and fast. On occasion, another avatar can just beat you to the draw by typing faster, but I did get to ask Ann if she thought she got a standing ovation at the ALA Conference in Washington partly because the film was such a shot in the arm for US librarians, who have been under huge pressure since September 11th. I also squeezed in a question about the whole situation in Salinas, and whether that wouldn't merit a complete documentary in itself...

It was great to have this experience, and Ann Seidl could just as easily have been 'visiting' UCD Library from the other side of the RL world, as from a room nearby. I would hope that there could be future 'visits' from luminaries of the library world. I've been remembering back to last Autumn when Blaise Cronin spoke to us in SILS. That event happened because he was in Ireland. Really, with SL, there's no need to wait for people to be in the country at all. What is necessary is an approach to them and their willingness to participate virtually...

One problem with this SL forum which quickly became apparent however, is that of etiquette. I think that students need to remember that they are attending a lecture or talk, even if it's not in the usual scenario of a lecture theatre. By and large, students in RL do not bumble about, remarking approvingly on their own appearance, or that of others. Dancing, flying, and zooming forwards or backwards are not regarded as de rigueur in RL lectures or talks, so they have no place in SL either.

Newbies can be forgiven for lapses in motor control - in my case I resolutely stayed away from all keyboard controls, except to type, as I had picked my position and just wanted to stay in one place and focus on the quickfire discussion - but personal chit-chat which disrupts the flow of the discussion for everyone else is unforgiveable. I have never told anyone to 'Shush' while I've been working in libraries, so it was ironic that in the context of discussing a film which explores the Hollywood stereotype of librarians, I was really tempted to do just that! If students are a tad over-excited about another avatar's wings or whatever, they should explore the possibilities of Instant Messaging...

Gortadoo Ewing's Tutorial, or How Not to Be a Boxhead in one easy lesson!

On Tuesday, 26th February I attended Gortadoo Ewing's (Cathal McCauley's) tutorial. This was a very different experience for me, as I had been using SL alone from home until this point. Around 15 of us were in the Information Skills Room, and it was a little disconcerting to hear everyone around me in RL, at the same time that we were all together in SL. On the other hand, we were all able to help each other out - I offered teleports to Ainia Thor and Ardlea Paulse whose avatars were stuck in inconvenient locations. (This is one reason I always teleport back to UCD Library at the end of a session. It's a little mad, but I like to know where I've left Demelza!)

The tutorial was both useful and timely, as Gortadoo gave us newbies great tips on practicalities like the Heads Up Device (HUD) and how not to be a 'boxhead' (Oh, the shame of it!). The short presentation was good as an overview of library opportunities in SL for service delivery and innovation, and though he is obviously an enthusiast, he didn't gloss over the negatives either - technical issues around access, ownership concerns, and fears of where SL is on the 'hype' cycle (Hopefully not "hurtling into a trough of disillusionment" as he termed it).

The problem of access is paramount for UCD students and library staff. SL can never become a 'mainstream' library service or activity while it is so comprehensively blocked on campus. I understand IT Services' concerns, but those concerns are curtailing educational opportunities. Even in my few short weeks of life in SL, I have seen how lectures, seminars, tutorials and study groups (in all disciplines) could take place effectively in this virtual environment.

Those of us who live off campus (with broadband and relatively new PCs or laptops) are the lucky ones. Unfortunately, many students in SILS are living on campus, so they don't even have the luxury of accessing SL on their laptops in the evenings... Contingency arrangements for access to offices in SILS are very welcome!

Lonely Library Student would like to meet similar...

This a presentation which Australian librarian, Kathryn Greenhill (Emerald Dumont) gave to the National Library of Australia...

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It's a lively and useful overview of Libraries and Second Life. (Click on the 'Play' arrow to view the slides!) The Extra Slides section has quotes from various librarians worldwide. These absolutely have a resonance with regard to possibilities for libraries to have a meaningful presence in SL, and also the opportunity to meet formally or informally with other librarians.

In a few short weeks, I've 'met' librarians and library students from all over the RL world, like Kamsin Kazan - a librarian from Nova Scotia, if I recall correctly. Gareth Otsuka is a library assistant from Liverpool Public Libraries. He's a volunteer at the Info Island Ref Desk, and an SL 'believer' who is frustrated by the fact that social networking is not a part of Liverpool Libraries' strategy.

Info Island International Reference Desk - great for info., events and groups in SL

Gareth initially approached me because he checked out my profile and saw I am a member of CILIP. Kamsin's a member of the group Second Life Library 2.0, as am I. That's why Demelza has Library Friend as well as her avatar name. (It's a great ice-breaker!) You can change your active group, but I like Library Friend, and Spartan, from San Jose SLIS, seemed a little threatening... (Check out my profile to see the Groups I'm a member of. Search for People, key in Demelza Trefoil in the Find Box. Please ignore the horrible photo. The UCD Logo looks better than I do...)

I've also enjoyed moaning to non-UCD library students like Kizilbash Ballyhoo and Dyonisus Michalak about assignments. Maybe this starts as idle chit-chat, but in reality, we're soon comparing courses and assignments, and it's interesting to hear what other library schools are up to.

Demelza Trefoil WILL NOT be retiring when this SL assignment is 'finished'!