Pictorial History of ALA Island: 2010-11

ALA Island History | 01/15/2012

The Midwinter MIG meeting was heavy on programming and very well-attended in SL. Some of it (at right) was done in other parts of SL operated by other library entities. Unfortunately, very little was done about organizing the group into a unit that could operate within the structure of ALA.

The spring of 2010 marked the creation of the Community Virtual Library as the economy made continued support from Alliance no longer viable. To mark the occasion, The Future Is Now (FIN) conference was held and by all measures, considered a success (see photos below). Held on multiple locations, including ALA Island, prominent librarians in the virtual world provided programming on several tracks and people paid to attend over two days' worth of presentations. ALA Island was given a facelift with removal of the labyrinth and creation of a steampunk-styled exhibition platform over the lake. I was involved as a volunteer, having been laid off in November due to the economy that was devastating all library budgets.

FIN was run at several sites besides ALA Island. It was very well attended and proved that programs could be run and generate revenue.

NLW 2010, due to all the work done for FIN, was not widely celebrated on ALA Island, thus we were unable to build upon the hunt concept from the previous year and gain more sponsors and another invitation to the greater SL community. Nonetheless, I was determined to make a big push for BBW despite my own employment woes. Kay also put together a great contest: make a video using the banned books theme and even through in a free robot mascot avatar, which was used in the winning video to great effect. I was able to get several people from a writers' group headed by Michael Stackpole to particpate in the SL Readoff (last photo). I daresay the human BBW Readoff event didn't have a reader with Stackpole's NYT bestselling status. We just weren't able to get the appropriate level of publicity to promote the event but these were people outside the virtual library community. Again, something to build on had we just a bit more support from the Office that oversees BBW.

2011: The Hammer Comes Down

I'm not sure whether the Main Stage hosted the Youth Media Awards for the 2011 MW. I don't have any pictures for ALA Island in 2011, not even when I went around picking up all my stuff after being warned that a redesign was being planned.

In the spring of 2012, Kay Tairov was given a parcel on InfoIsland and has put together a very nice multistory site for ALA's presence in SL. Along with dispensors for information about ALA, READ posters that you can create by posing your avatar are available.

Many more photos can be found on Flickr at the American Library Association in Second Life group administered by Valerie Hawkins at ALA.