Swinish

Meetings held: 2 (good); Weeks taken to put up chatlog of 1st one: 3 (bad); Hours spent on pasting up chatlogs, making wiki pages, revising notecard etc: 3 (bad)

Am trying to catch up on backlog of recording info on discussions, amidst all the backlog about everything else. Life is just one long backlog.

Firstly was Adra Letov's meeting, The Information Environment is Affect-Driven held on 21st May. Adra (Diane Nahl in RL) spoke in Voice but helpfully provided notecards with text and refernces, and the rest of us spoke in chat. Have put texts on wiki here http://infolitischool.pbworks.com/IB-and-emotion%3A-Dr-Diane-Nahl-21st-May-2009 and chatlog is here http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=418
Was v. pleased that had persuaded colleague Nigl (who is information behaviour researcher) to come along, and Jackie, Ishbel, Maggie (& various others) were there too. Lot of interest and things to follow up. Humorous moment when Nigl sat accidentally on my head. Lol.

Last Thursday was the Swine Flu Information Literacy event. Graham blogged the meeting rather faster than I have at http://tidalblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/seven-pillars.html and managed to capture the Humorous Event of this meeting, namely point where I had dropped people a surgical mask and we had all donned them as if for strange ritual. Maggie added to this by wearing mask on head, which was, frankly, more becoming than wearing it on face.
Have put up chatlog (this was all in chat) at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=417 and also have started up wiki page with some summary notes & explanation at http://infolitischool.pbworks.com/Information+Literacy+builds+-+Swine+flu where people are encouraged to comment. Or do visit the build at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20%iSchool/169/189/21/

When going through chatlog was disturbed to notice several occurances of:
"[2009/06/04 12:37] Pig poster: Unable to give inventory: 'No item named 'Bird flu - the exercise'.'."

Feared this meant that Swine Flu Notecard, that had cheerfully told everyone to take, did not work, but everyone was too polite to say. Turned out (when tried clicking stuff just now) to be in poster that wasn't meant to have notecard, so all well. Apart from fact that some people probably thought they were MEANT to have a notecard. All water under bridge now, anyway. And is charming that Pig Poster was able to take part in Chat, even if contribution was on repetitive side.
After session was clearing up when Spotted Dousa on Regent Plaza. She ran an idea about student journalism interns past me - could be interesting. Graham also was showing a colleague the build, so island felt pleasantly busy.

And after this stayed up far too late and ended up taking advantage of the open hours on the University of Washington sim (last pic), where there was a Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs build. You had to do a lot of climbing up and down, and there was some interactive element.

Was enjoyable, but am now wondering: did I learn anything about the hierarchy? Probably only clicked the bits and did the bits that looked amusing, rather than the parts which were most informative. On one hand, was frivolous academic v.v. late at night - on other hand gnat-like attention span probably means am rather like these millennial students everyone talks about.

And now think Sleep has come to top of my Needs hierarchy, so will stop.

ILU, Chairs

Have now put online the chatlog from the discussion on the Information Literate University held in Sakura House on Infolit iSchool on 26th Feb: it is at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=236. Also put up stuff from notecard (plus diagram that had mounted on a poster, see 2nd pic) at http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/ILU-SL.pdf

As can be seen in 1st photo, was nice number of people, not so few as to feel embarrassing or so many as to render chat chaotic. However, as always when went through chatlog noticed conversation that had passed me by at the time, most mortifying. In particular someone who asked 2/3rds of way through what exactly an ILU was, and the rest of us just chuntered on and the person who had asked didn't say anything else during the discussion. Argh. Feel guilty about lack of improvement in discussion-leading skills.

You will note from chatlog that 2 people commented favourably on chairs in Sakura House. Comfort of chairs mentioned by one person but not sure how to interpret this.

Should have followed up to discover whether was lack of poses in chairs that found favour.

Incidently, chair in question is the Nice Brown Chair by Sudane Erato (see 3rd pic), costing 100 Linden and comprising 4 prims. Suppose could make similar for free, but this chair does job nicely and since can modify and copy has seemed well worth the 100 Linden. Can be obtained at Cosy Cove (218, 162, 2)

Hobbiton, Meeting, Beer

Discussions held: 1 (good); Wardrobe overlap encountered: 1 (good); Beers offered: 1 (good)
Led a discussion session on 7 Feb reporting back from the Information strategies for researchers conference (held in Dublin on 31 Jan) and discussing issues to do with researchers' information literacy. The transcript of the talk is online at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=222 and notecard with info is in the Centre for Information Literacy Research on the Infolit iSchool. Am also blogging most of notecard over 3 posts at http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/ Seemed interesting discussion: anyway, you can read it for yoursef.

Had emailed lis-infoliteracy discussion list and seemed to have picked up most of participants through that. Used Hobbiton House for discussion for first time - Bobbin seats have disadvantage that some poses are slightly odd, plus with most of them you can't see whether someone's about to chat (i.e. computer typing animation is supressed). Saw that one person was wandering round island at same time and assumed she was trying to find meeting, but in fact was sighteseer. Encountered her later - she turned out to be from a Canadian college and later she brought a friend back and offered me some beer, which was companionable.

In meantime had visited Flower's new office again and found that I was wearing a cardigan she had and she was wearing a dress I had. Whilst twittering thus, male avatar who had been attempting serious conversation about pets had quietly melted away....

Party?

No of pics of CILR launch featured on news site: 1 (strange)

Today Ishbel pointed out that one of the pics she took of the opening of the Centre for Information Literacy Research on Eduserv Island in July was reproduced on a news website with the following legend:
"A virtual party is held in the online world of Second Life, where real people can immerse themselves and socialize, own property and even wed."
Hmmm. Event pictured is Art Fossett being presented with a gift for hiring us the office. Suppose it could loosely be termed party, insofar as socialisation took place and virtual alcohol imbibed and even had the requisit slumped avatars. Accompanying article is about SL marriage and title says it all:
Newser. (2007) "Man Treats Virtual Wife Better Than Real One." Newser, 11 August. http://www.newser.com/story/5652.html
Photo: copyright Ishbel Hartmann.

Discussion

Discussions held: 1 (good); No of places where posting about discussion transcript: 7 (getting ridiculous)

Last Thursday held first discussion session (Inquiry Based Learning and Second Life) on Infolit iSchool. As usual difficult decision as to how much to publicise . Wish to avoid the "office cat is only delegate" scenario experienced on one occasion, on other hand if too many people becomes unmanageable. In end advertise on UK educators lists in addition to usual library one, also Art Fossett v. helpfully sets up Facebook group as promised and v. embarrassingly only stumble across it after event takes place.

Prepare Sakura House with extra chairs in inventory should hoards descend. Wear scripted prim skirt so can sit down without revealing underwear. Prepare notecards on "What is IBL" and "This discussion in IBL and SL", create posters and place in Sakura House. Put redirect teleporter in old CILR office and at Regent Plaza on the island. Decide to remove part of back window of House so easier to get in and out. Reboot computer to minimize risk of crashing. Switch on chat log.

Then sit and contemplate sunrise until first people arise. Soon evident that will not just be me and cat, hurrah. Turns out to be largest meeting so far. Transcript of chat is at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=165.

V. interesting IMHO, but also shows that have to refine SL listening/reading skills still further as seem numerous points where indulge in parallel stream of consciousness. Is definitely useful to have 2 people involved in discussions to pick up on different threads and keep on track. Also perhaps need sign in centre of circle which says TAKE A NOTECARD since otherwise start sounding like broken record at start. But venue seems to work, so great relief. Also one participant has video-ed and will be using in presentation in USA, which I think v. cool.

After meeting zoom round and photograph someone talking balloon ride. No. of rides has shot to 28 but does not compare well with over 1000 rides taken on Info International tour vehicle.

Then spend some hours: editing transcript for typos (mostly mine) and taking out XXX IS ONLINE parts of chat, mounting chat using excellent Leeds thingy, updating notecards, updating textures to put on posters with notecards in, rearranging posters in CILR (have now grouped them by broad topic rather than by date) , uploading to Flickr, writing blog entries, posting info on where transcript is to Groups (etc etc). And I've got another discussion this evening. Seem to be making work for self.

Mitsy and I discuss information literacy

No. of discussions scheduled on information literacy: 1 (good); No. of people arriving for discussion: 0 (bad); No. of objects bought in aftermath of non-discussion to cheer self up: 17 (bad)

Today was scheduled to be discussion of information literacy in different disciplines. Made usual preparations:

- Created informative noteboard;

- Created large poster which invited people to click to get noteboard;

- Arranged October meetings for future IL discussions and created noteboard;

- Updated "Forthcoming meetings" notices with noteboard;

- Created large poster reminding people that meeting started 30 mins later than originally scheduled;

- Rearranged chairs;

- Removed antelope to make more room;

- Bought festive pumpkins and arranged decoratively.

Also bought new black forest gateau from Divivity but decided that cinnamon buns would still do as not many people saw them at last meeting.

Was in bit of rush immediately before meeting. Had come from committee of which am new member. This is university-level body which has uber-role for approving documentation for new programmes and is called the Programmes Sub-Committee. As can be imagined is v. exciting and requires ability to comment on whether e.g. information supplied section 21 on Form R is compliant with requirements, and congruent with statements in section 18 on the Programme Specification. Was recommended for this committee, so don't know what says about self. Still, shows that do not spend entire time choosing necklaces and hot tubs in SL.

Anyway, rushed back, went inworld and was relieved to see no-one had arrived yet. Did final adjustments to chairs, recentred Mitsy (Set Cat Range Very Small). And waited.

At start time (08.30 SL time) became rather anxious. All that could be heard was Mitsy's yowling, the rattle of the wind chime and the seagull's mournful cry. Ate cinnamon bun to calm self.

By 08.50 had decided that no-one was coming except me and Mitsy the cat. Was in some ways a relief after long day (also deputised for Head of Dept in welcoming postgrads to Dept and chatted to people at Welcome Lunch). Have consoled self that is v.v.v. bad time of year for UK librarians, namely intro (freshers') week, or, in some unis, week 1.

One of discussion questions was " As you can see this issue is interesting to me! Do you think it is worth having a conference in SL about this topic? It could have posters and notecards about IL classes/initiatives in particular disciplines, perhaps some breakout/feedback sessions to discuss issues to do with specific disciplines. It might also be possible to attract people who are interested in researching information behaviour (information seeking etc.) in particular disciplines, and faculty in different disciplines who are in SL. I was thinking about something in 2008."

On face of it, plain answer to this is "no" since people could not even be bothered to turn up to short discussion. However am reluctant to believe this so will still float idea.

After tidying office, decide to console self with spending spree. Found nice shop where photographed self with book-reading pillow & bought that plus other items which will describe in next post, and also decided to buy stuff to put on ocean floor. Found v. cheap rocks, free weed and also 10 goldfish for 50 Linden.

Have done sensible post with list of some resouces on information literacy & disciplines here.

Discussion on search and shopping

Meetings in CILR office = 1 (good)

Realise with embarrassment that after Centre for Information Literacy Research discussion in SL on Tuesday, about Useful information sources and strategies for learning about how & where to shop:
1) Uploaded chat transcript to dinky Leeds met application
2) Updated notecards in office
3) Changed hover script of next meeting to 25 September
4) IMed the IL Group and Academic Avatars group with info on location of transcript
5) Tidied up pics of session
but failed to blog it. Oops. V. bad.

Anyway, after anxious start when thought no-one but me and Ishbel would be there (see 2nd pic) some more people turned up including repeat visitors. Had given "everyday information seeking" spin to talk, so feared that had put of fashionistas whilst serious folks would think shopping beneath them.

Anyhow, interesting talk ensued, exploring inadequacies of SL search once more. Talked about some "work round" strategies, and also how people used blogs and other web sources - on the whole more than asking advice of other people. Ended with sharing thoughts on challenges of shopping esp. for slightly scarey things like skins.

Transcript is at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=129

Librarians in SL

Discussions held in Centre: 1 (good); Successful discussions held in Centre: 1 (v. good); People attending: 10 plus lurkers in RL (good)

On Tuesday 4th September Maggie Kohime (Lyn from Sheffield University Library in RL) led a discussion in the Centre for Information Literacy Research, Eduserv Island. The full title was How should Librarians present themselves in Second Life, or Facebook, My Space or other social networking tools, with a professional or a personal face?
The transcript is online split into two parts at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=124 and http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=125

10 people were there (including us) and the debate was lively (i.e. a good deal of parallel conversations going on). However they were interesting parallel conversations, and Maggie did a good job of leading and summarising. And certainly better than 10 avatars sitting in a ring with AWAY over their heads, as is nightmare of discussion organisers (well, actual nightmare is, say 3 people turning up and all 3 disappearing in puff of smoke after 5 minutes - or 50 avatars turning up and you can't get them all on the island. But silent fidgety avatars is pretty bad).

Anyway there was none of that at this session and a range of issues got discussed. In our group some had alternative avatars for different occasions though more did not. (Some) people were buying clothes, but not so much playing with appearance.

The discussion raised questions about the librarians' role - why they are there - and also the "conservative nature of some students and staff inc. expectations that you should look "normal". Towards the end there was mention of intellectual property, liability issues etc. and I have flagged that up as a future topic.

Is there an equivalent of the RL stereotype of bun and glasses, or of "smart casual". It seemed like there did seem to be norms emerging, though not exactly the same as in RL.

Maggie provided some questions for discussion:
1. How do you decide on how you want your avatar to appear?
2. How many of us recreate ourselves as closely as possible in Second Life, make ourselves look how we would wish to look in RL or even have a different looking avatar for different days of the week? (Amdahl, 2006)
3. Do we need to label who we are? (e.g. "Librarian" - opinion was divided - or, rather, it seemed to depend on the context)4. If our students become our ‘friends’ within the social networking environments how do we keep our professional and our social lives separate?
5. How do we ensure privacy and confidentiality as we start to develop an academic virtual world?

Things which seemed to work: 1) Having a notecard prepared for people (again); 2) Having 2 people involved, so one can concentrate on facilitating and the other on helping people; 3) Planning for what to do if too many people turn up (we were going to go to the Eduserv conference centre, had the teleport link all ready).
And after the meeting I tidied up and played with the rabbits.

Fixing things; Visit; Fashion

Guided visits: 1 (good); Items fixed in Centre for Information Literacy Research Office: 2 (good, but could do better); Outfits bought: 1 (unless you count the leggings and shrugs in which case it's about 20)

After orgy of SL activity leading up to CILR office launch have tried to spend less time in SL and more in catching up with RL work backlog plus enjoying fact that this seems to be week in which North of England has its summer.

Was some essential SL work, namely fixing copyable bear that noone could copy and suggestions box in which noone could leave suggestions. Main prob. was issue of Permissions which appear complex and not entirely satisfactory even when know what you are doing, to judge by various posting and tutorials found.

In terms of bear have enabled people to Buy it for zero Linden Dollars which appears to work. In terms of box, have replaced Potlatch Box with simple 1 prim box in which people can drop notecards if members of Information Literacy Group. Aim is to collect suggestions on future events in Centre and MK has already suggested 2 ideas, hurrah.

Do not point out in box's instructions that can obviously join IL Group briefly in order to drop suggestion and then unjoin from IL Group once suggestion dropped. Hopefully people with constructive suggestions will work this out and spammers won't. Suppose it is rule of Life that if anything will be other way round i.e. people wanting to cause trouble will do so.

Other big SL activity since last writing was visit to meeting space (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wasp/74/31/86/) of Australian educators, with guided tour from Jokay Wollongong and Sean McDunnough. Jokay and Sean have excellent Second Life in Education wiki at http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/. AF was there too, always nice to have someone you know turn up at these events. Was amusing incident with broom in hairdressing salon, also whilst everyone sitting professionally in conference forum think outsider intruded to perform dance on stage and fart but everyone ignored politely and continued listening to Sean talking about educational approaches. Believe this behaviour called Griefing.

Event useful for learning movement and conversation skills as well as learning about education. Shown various info boards, conference hall & also sim of hairdressing salon for use by hairdressing students to learn communication skills etc. (see second photo) There are some more pics of this event by Jokay on flickr e.g. this one (that's me with the blue hair and long black skirt)

Finally could not get through last days without usual shopping excursions have found good place to buy leggings and shrugs, staples in any wardrobe, from Frustrated Inc. Discovered this place through Closet Crisis, v. good blog at http://www.closetcrisis.com/

Last photos shows self in consumption mode.

Launch, addenda

Balloons removed after launch: 12 (sad); Emails about launch from colleagues: 1 (good)

This brief post to catch up with more pics from launch. First one from flickr collection of Pete Johnston, reproduced with kind permission, as they say. All his pics (linked from last post) are good, but this is nice in showing view of whole office with people in and celebration balloons.

IH has also put up some pics, including one which displays her dress nicely and a good one of me.
Finally here are two photos taken half an hour before launch. At that point was having last minute panic about which necklace to wear and making sure that cat in place and all food and drink in order. Photos show, however, that not all guests alive with anticipation.

In first pic see guest so excited that has slumped asleep over coffee in corner (at least cat Mitsy has stayed awake).

In 2nd pic see another guest so relaxed has climbed onto coffee maker and zizzed off. Had slight hysterics when this happened, indeed colleague phoned up at this point in RL and found was almost unable to speak, fortunately colleague knows of SL obsession and was tolerant.

Launch!

Centre for Information Literacy Research launched in SL: 1 (v. good); No of people attending: 12 (v. good); Drinks consumed: lots (good); No. of times computer crashed when about to start welcoming speech: 2 (v. bad)

Am recovering from general hysteria induced by hosting first virtual gathering. Generally counted a success and already some nice coverage of event. Art Fossett blogged about event here on his blog and there are excellent photos from Peregrine Juneau here on flickr

Have prepared press release and since have not said on this blog what Centre actually IS , here is the link to the Centre's website: http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/cilr/ . Centre also launched in RL this week and hasn't physical office, is more a focus for information literacy activity & liaising with other researchers. So to have SL office is v. nice as well as giving justification for designing roof gardens and buying launch-party outfits (although as see in pics in end am wearing old butterfly skirt, though with newish top and latest batch of jewellry).
Good things were that 4 other people from my Department attended, plus Maggie Kohime from the library. 2 people (Art and Peregrine) attended from Eduserv (who donated office space). Also were 4 people from outside including IH. Managed to give speech welcoming people (more on that in a moment), Art gave v. elegant speech and I presented gift box. Then were some interesting conversations. Party lasted about 1 hour which is longer than had thought.

Will talk in future posts about various features that installed in office last night in flurry of activity. One of these was the bear poster (Pegegrine has good photo on flickr) of which was rather proud, which instructed people how to copy freebie bear. Bear (illustrated here) is blue in colour with CILR written on ears, "I love information literacy" text hovering over it and a notecard inside with basic info on the Centre plus some useful links etc. on infolit.

Half way through party when drink etc. had oiled wheels of conversation emerged that in fact must have got permissions wrong as people weren't able to copy bear, thus detracting from its cuteness. Will need to investigate this but couldn't fix immediately as bear is formed of linked objects. Lesson here about perils of tinkering with SL scripting when actually have zero idea of how it works and am merely cutting and amending in line with helpful tutorials found through googling on web.
Other major embarrassment was that computer crashed TWICE, of course waiting until was about to begin welcoming speech. Was trying to paste in lines from prepared MS Word script and machine couldn't cope with all activity on screen plus that. When got back in computer evidently had enough, since was only inworld for 3 mins before got dreaded screen of death.

Was saved by colleague who had logged in computer in lab so was able to continue from there. If am going to organise any other events will have to use that from beginning.

Anyway, have other snippets to blog including Embarrassing Photos of Colleagues, but will save that for another time. Visitors had v. good ideas for discussion topics & people kindly saved transcript of session so can pick through it in detail at leisure.

1st photo shows Ishebel, plus Nigl and Yuxuan from my Department (Nigl's photo is also on the sliddeshow behind him). The 2nd photo shows Art's speech, the 3rd photo shows the bear and the fourth the conversation after the launch.

Preparing to launch

Colleagues guided into SL: 1 (good); Bears created: 1 (good); Photo panel prepared: 1 (good); New hair ornaments purchased: 6 (bad); Wedding dresses bought: 1 (v. bad); No. of times disappeared completely in limbo: 1 (v. v. bad)

Frantic preparations in train for launch of Centre for Information Literacy Research at 5.30 SL time (1.30 pm UK time). The location of CILR office is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduserv%20Island/
200/240/43/?title=CILR%20Office i.e. Eduserv Island 200 240 43 - so feel free to come along and join the jollifications.

AF should be there to receive thanks, also several colleagues promise to be inworld and IH & CH. Have Modified virtual teddy bear found in gianormous gift pack so now is different colour and with cute ears (IMHO). Anyway, will reveal all at opening. Also have found script for getting photos to cycle through in a frame so have loaded that with pics of me & 2 colleagues. V. arty I think.

Have put up loads of balloons, apologised to AF for excess prims, prepared extra food and drink, updated notecards.... so hope is not disaster e.g. completely mistaking time. Have last minute dither about what to wear to launch and made v. bad purchase of what is actually wedding dress and although v. lovely is not v. suitable in particular because so huge & fluffy scarcely any room for other avatars in office. Current choice is therefore butterfly dress.

Worst experience of evening was when shopping and suddenly found self in inky limbo (see first pic.) unable to move and then UNABLE TO SEE SELF at all. Was as though avatar completely vanished, not at all what you want when about to have major professional event, so was v. relieved when self reappeared after logging out and back in. 2nd photo show self in short skirted outfit that have decided not to wear to launch.