Monday, August 14, 2006

Second Life Avatar

I finally had time to take a look at Second Life this weekend, after leveling to 57 in WoW, of course. It was a brief visit. I created my avatar, Cresenc Luna, and visited the library. I took a survey, left a note on the bulletin board, and then, Second Life crashed. I will visit again, though. I'm looking forward to attending some events.

Why would anyone want to explore something like Second Life? Let's narrow that... Why would a librarian want to visit Second Life? One more time... Why would I want to visit Second Life? I think the human/computer interface is fascinating. IRL (in real life), I find people's reactions to new technologies... well, fascinating. Some very bright and gifted people react with absolute horror when faced with different technology applications. Other people literally embrace it. I think the gap will be smaller with the next generations; interfacing with a computer will be second nature.

So back to Second Life. During my visit to the library, I explored some files-- as in drawers in cabinets containing paper. Many of these were teaching guides on humanities and science projects. It was a familiar experience-- as familiar as pulling open a file drawer at my physical desk (a little neater, perhaps). I would think this would provide a level of comfort for many people. So, this virtual reality isn't on the level of the simulator in Crichton's novel, Disclosure. The immediacy isn't there, of course.

I can easily imagine a virtual library, with virtual librarians and other patrons, all browsing for information, having conversations, and sharing an experience, all from the comfort of your home, or airport, or wherever. Or maybe I just read too much sci fi.

Visit Second Life... for the very best reason: it's just plain challenging and fun.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

WOOT!! Level 56

Yes! Level 56, level 56! I haven't been able to play for about two weeks, and only needed 1 and a bit bars to get to 56. It's been on my mind. Last night, after eating way too much Indian food, I settled into my chair and started taking out rock stalkers and stonelashers, amping up the xp. And then, WOMP. <-- sound effect

Now I have to admit I wasn't all that enamoured of the new skills. Guess they're saving the best for Level 60. It looks to be a quiet weekend, so I'm planning on spending some time pursuing my "hobby". (And looking at Wordpress, XAMPP, etc.)

By the way, WoW just put up an official site on MySpace. They only have 23043 friends so far!

Friday, August 04, 2006

Michael Stephens (www.tametheweb.com)

Michael was one of the guest speakers at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County's (NC) "Technology Summit on Library 2.0". He and Michael Casey (LibraryCrunch) of Georgia's Guinnett County Public Library addressed Library 2.0.

ImaginOn was a great venue-- a must visit if you're ever in the area. Special thanks to Helene Blowers for putting on a great show!

We can hardly wait for Michael Stephens (and Jenny Levine and Stephen Abram) to come to SC for the State Library's Technology Institute in September!

Thursday, August 03, 2006

My First Podcast

Wow! Created my first podcast today, using of course, all open-source tools. Probably not going to be a dedicated podcaster... seeing as keeping up with blogging is enough of a challenge some days. Creating the podcast was relatively easy. Of course there are some excellent tutorials online... check out my Del.icio.us for some of them. The real reason for working with podcasting is to explore the outreach opportunities for public libraries. This clip took me about an hour to record and edit, including the background sounds.