Two Virtual Worlds Items

As an ALA member, I get the weekly e-mail newsletter AL Direct. Since not all of us are ALA members, I wanted to highlight a couple of items I saw in a recent issue:


1) The Blue Book: A Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds - This guide from the Association of Virtual Worlds documents over 250 virtual environments. These run the gambit from Second Life to the odd sounding "Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow." I can count the number of virtual worlds I'm aware on one hand, so it's interesting to see that the concept appears to be growing by leaps and bounds.

2) Time's May 12, 2008 issue has an article titled How Second Life Affects Real Life that "suggests that the qualities you acquire online — whether it's confidence or insecurity — can spill over and change your conduct in the real world, often without your awareness. " Some interesting and somewhat unsettling research here. If you read this article, let me know what you think. Perhaps we should try to find a confidence-building reality before hitting the ref desk. Or avoid ones that convince us the online world is filled with Orcs.

My personal opinion is that currently most of Alaska lacks the bandwidth to make AK library presences in Second Life and other 3-D virtual worlds worthwhile. What do you think? Should there be an AkLA pavilion on InfoIsland?

CE Tip: Webcasts from OCLC

Wonder what keeps OCLC people up at night? Want to spend some time learning about ideas to link physical libraries with the online world? Check out OCLC PARcasts at http://www.oclc.org/programsandresearch/parcasts/. These podcasts/webcasts will soon be available in iTunes.

Sealaska Heritage Institute Collection Upgrades

The SHI Archivist announced that the Sealaska Heritage Institute Special Collections in Juneau were receiving some welcome upgrades:

For patrons this new facility will host a more accommodating research area or Reading Room, which consists of a room for patrons to come in and sit down at a workspace, obtain computer access, and conduct research by using our materials. We plan to use the Reading Room to host other small educational events as well. The move to the new facility is especially great for Special Collections because we are getting more storage space for our growing collection holdings.

Congratulations to SHI Special Collections on this new development. I look forward to their educational events.

New(ish) Roundtable Blog - Information Homestead

If you're wanting to keep up with government information with an Alaskan perspective, please check out Information Homestead, the blog of the AkLA Government Documents Roundtable. The blog may be found at http://informationhomestead.wordpress.com/ and has been added to our Alaska library blogroll on the left side of this page.

If you are a member of an AkLA chapter, Roundtable or Committee that has a blog that you think the rest of the association should know about, please let Daniel or Freya know (or respond in comments) and we'll get your unit's blog added to our list. Same goes for any library in Alaska that doesn't see their blog featured in our blogs list.

CE Tip From BlogJunction

The folks from OCLC WebJunction recently highlighted their webinar archive in a post at http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/2008/05/08/weekly-tips-traverse-the-webinar-archives/. One of the categories of webinars they highlighted was for small and rural libraries. Archived webinars can be viewed at any time. Check to see if your computer and internet connection can handle WebJunction webinars by visiting http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=13377.

Relief for Gas Prices (Information)

With gasoline at or above $4.00/gal in many Alaskan communities, there is growing interest in the forces and news behind rising gas patrons. While a library can't cut the price of unleaded, the University of Michigan has posted a new resource on gas prices at http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/dn08/dn08gas.html. It can answer questions like:

How much does crude oil contribute to the cost of a gallon of gas?
How much taxes are paid on gasoline?
Where does gasoline come from anyway?
What are people across the nation paying for gas?

So stop in and fill 'er up with gas facts.

What sorts of subjects are your patrons asking you about? If you're having trouble finding resources in a given area, let me know and maybe I can find enough to do a post about it.

Quick Tour of Web 2.0 via Library Journal

The May 1st issue of Library Journal carries an article worth reading by anyone who needs to brush up on so-called web 2.0 technologies like Facebook, Flickr, Second Life, iPods, etc. The citation for the article is:

Title: THE PARALLEL INFORMATION UNIVERSE.

Authors: Eisenberg, Mike

Source:Library Journal; 5/1/2008, Vol. 133 Issue 8, p22-25, 4p, 1c

It is available thanks to the Digital Pipeline and you're reading this in Alaska, you should be able to read the article at http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=31743791&site=ehost-live.


Each type of technology is briefly analyzed according to Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. I especially like this article for its balance. It is neither a manifesto to adopt every shiny new toy nor a call to return to 1965.