Second Life

Libraries are constantly looking for new ways to reach the people they serve, and one platform that has been much discussed recently is the program Second Life (SL). SL is a virtual world where one can create a free account and design their own avatar to serve as a visual, virtual version of themselves.

One of the neatest things about creating your avatar is the ability you have to change its appearance. You can change things that are so subtle, such as the slant of your eyes or the fullness of your lips, that if you spent some serious time on it, you could make quite an accurate replica of yourself. You can also design and edit your clothing using items in your account's inventory.

SL participants can interact with each other, and with the world itself. You can chat with text or voice to individuals, or to the whole area your avatar is located within. Your avatar can also perform gestures to help you communicate. Shaking its head yes or no, pointing, and stretching are just a few of the gestures your avatar can make.

Your avatar can interact with the world by touching objects, sitting on them, or building in certain areas of SL. You can visit a virtual coffee shop, sit on a stool, and order a cup for your avatar. Students can meet with their instructor's avatar, who sits behind a desk ready to hear their concerns.

So what does all of this mean for libraries? How are they using SL, and are any of their patrons actually using it?

Many of them are using it as a meeting place. Let's face it, gas prices are expensive. Plus, some library populations do not have reliable access to transportation. If your library builds a virtual meeting place in SL, you can alert your patrons to meet you there at a certain date and time and hold book talks, focus groups, or other library programs.

SL can be used to host an extension of sorts to the library itself. By visiting Georgia Tech Library's SL location, you can access a reference librarian (and leave them a message if they happen to be off duty). Their area also features work stations that can be touched to open up aspects of the library's resources within a SL web browser. Advertisements for new library services and programs are also utilized in SL.

In the SL location for Austrailia Libraries, you can sit on a sofa and open up a copy of an open-source novel like Pride and Prejudice, and read it cover to cover. You can look at a slide show of noteworthy places in Austrailia, or perhaps pick up some notecards on Austrailian Farming in their outhouse, aka the Austrailian Farmer's Reading Room.

Now for drawbacks. I have visited each of these places multiple times and never seen another human being I didn't meet there on purpose. Also, it's not the most stable program in the world. Sometimes the whole program goes down for hours unannounced, or runs very slowly or locks up.

Not everyone has the robust computer hardware to run the program, and difficulties installing the software are common.

As SL evolves it could be the hottest spot around, or maybe it will grow to attract a certain techie type of person who likes to avoid social interaction?

Time will tell, but until then libraries must keep their fingers on the pulse of this trend with the ultimate goal of being where their users are, both virtually and within the real world.

Book Review: John Hart's Down River

Being a huge fan of John Hart's King of Lies, I decided to try out his new book, Down River and looked forward to the same suspense, drama, and intrigue. I was not disappointed.



The book begins with the willful and cocky Adam Chase returning home after five years of living in New York, where he had fled after escaping a murder conviction where his own step-mother testified against him. After swearing he would never return to Rowan County, North Carolina, his friend Danny calls and begs him to come home in no uncertain terms, and Adam finds himself feeling he owes Danny, who has been there so many times for him.

But when Adam arrives in Rowan County, Danny is no where to be found, and he finds that the town still remembers him as a murder suspect. Then someone is murdered and Adam once again feels the finger of the county pointed at him.

You will be kept constantly guessing just which character in the book is the true murderer, but you won't know for sure until the very end. For a suspenseful and attention-grabbing read, check out North Carolina native John Hart's book, Down River.

Summer Reading Suggestions

If you are anything like me you have a hard time deciding what to read. There are some fun tools out there on the net to help you pick books that you have a good chance of liking, and maybe even loving.

At whatshouldireadnext.com you can save a list of your favorite books. From their home page, you can type the title and author of a book you really love, and it will provide you a list of suggestions for book you may also like.

There is also the Library Thing Book Suggester at http://www.librarything.com/suggest. From their home page, when you type in the title and author of a book you can find out all sorts of information about it, such as how others have tagged it, what kinds of books people have on their bookshelves who also own this book, and books with similar subjects or library classifications.

When you close a door, a window opens

Yesterday was my last day of graduate school, which means today I can officially be a librarian. This librisms blog will grow as I do, and I hope it will contain some helpful ideas and tricks.