Slides from IIUG Conference on Second Life
(25/06/2007)
If are not already aware of Second Life, then this might change. Second life is an online virtual world that is growing at an astonishing rate and it is increasingly catching the attention of Universites and Colleges as a means of connecting with students. In it people interact through online characters or 'avatars'. Second life has over 7 million 'residents'* and the number of active residents in the last seven days is two million. At the time of writing, there are 33,000 people online.
IIUG has established a station in this virtual environment, where we have put all the PowerPoint presentations up for viewing. The place is part of a larger 'info island', where there are many library related initiatives. One of our neighbours in the region is the UCD library.
The IIUG can be found on Eduisland III. For details on how to use Second Life, visit: SecondLife.com. Once you're in, find and join the group entitled: IIUG - Irish Innovative Users Group.
Further Reading**
* The figure at the time of writing is 7.55 million. The figure for May 8th was 6.14 million. The number of residents is increasing exponentially. This is a significant phenomenon.**Thanks to Dr. Philip Cohen for these references
IIUG 2007 Keynote Speaker:
Tim Spalding, of LibraryThing
We are really thrilled to have Tim come over and speak to us this year.
About Tim:
Tim created LibraryThing. He started it as a pet project, to catalog his own library and for academic and bibliophile friends. He had no idea it would explode like it did, really he didn't. Before LibraryThing, Tim was a graduate student in Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan, and worked for Houghton Mifflin in Boston and as a freelance web developer and web publisher.
About LibraryThing:
LibraryThing is really two sites in one.
First, it is a powerful tool to catalog your personal library. Users add books to their catalog by entering titles, authors, or ISBN numbers. LibraryThing then searches the Library of Congress, all five national Amazon sites, and over 45 world libraries, and returns with precise book data. Users can then edit the books in their catalog, tag their books with their own subjects, and use the Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal systems to organize their collections.
LibraryThing is also an amazing social space, connecting people with similar libraries. It also makes book recommendations based on the collective intelligence of the other libraries.
With best wishes,
The IIUG Committee
(David Kane, Suzanne Walsh, Frank Hodgins, Breffni Smith, Padraig Kirby)
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