The American Library Association announced in a press release this week that they now have space in Linden Labs’ 3D Virtual Reality, Second Life. ALA will have one half of ALA/Arts Island, which will be utilized as a new method for disseminating ALA news and information. It will also be used for reaching out to …Read more »

Photos from the February 15 program have been posted to MLC’s Flickr account.

At yesterday’s R U A nOOB: Bridging the Gap Between Boomers and Gamers program, we used the following quiz to see where audience members fell as Library Boomers, Gamers, or “in the Gap.” Boomer/Gamer Library Quotient Test 1. Give yourself a point if you can remember working in a library (or visiting a library as …Read more »

A new library blog, Designing Better Libraries, has just been launched.  Created in response to the multitude of library-related blogs devoted to pointing out the problems with libraries and librarianship, DBL hopes to address the recognized problems with solutions to improve our profession and libraries.  DBL’s plan is to adapt “new ways of thinking and …Read more »

Electronic Information For Libraries, eIFL-IP Advocacy for Access to Information, has released a new Handbook on Copyright and Related Issues for Libraries on their web site in html and downloadable PDF. The Handbook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license. Sponsored by UNESCO, the handbook is a practical guide to topical legal questions …Read more »

Check out these two contrasting views posted on blogs today about libraries in Second Life: Stephen Abrams’ “Rev up your avatars – future libraries’ third presence in Second Life” The Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette, “Second Life, Joining” [And in the same vein, see also: “Get a First Life.”] Where do you fall in the Second …Read more »

Click here to see the Web 2.0 video on YouTube that has been making the rounds on library blogs this week. The video, Web 2.0 … the Machine is Us/ing Us, highlights the idea of the web linking people – sharing, trading, and collaborating. Library 2.0 brings those concepts to libraries – community, collaboration, and …Read more »

Read or listen to this great story from NPR. “Librarians are finding that patrons are eager to switch over from checking out CDs and cassettes because they love the portability and convenience of digital downloads.” “…downloading a digital book from the public library works pretty much like downloading audio material from a commercial site — …Read more »

Copyright law professor, Lawrence Lessig, is posting a series of presentations on his blog over the next couple weeks.  The presentations will outline arguments for five Internet-related proposals that he believes Congress should enact this year: Orphan Works, Remix Culture, Network Neutrality, Spam, and Harmful to Minors Material.  The first presentation will be posted later …Read more »

Here’s a photo of MLC staff taken today in Second Life. From left to right: Diana, Aaron, Ruth, Evette, Mark, Randy, Brian, and Suzanne. If you’re in Second Life, please stop by and visit our MLC building in Cybrary City (see especially our rooftop hot tub with complimentary bathing suits). One of our neighbors in …Read more »