I (finally) submitted my proposal for my 580 Research project a couple of weeks ago. Part of the most daunting bit of my study towards the Masters of Library and Information Studies programme at Victoria University, my project is titled “Virtual World Libraries: Challenges and Strategies”. In brief, the research explores three questions:

1. What challenges faced by traditional online library services/interfaces are able to be overcome by Virtual World Library environments?
2. What new challenges (or old ones) face the development of Libraries in Virtual Worlds?
3. How might these challenges be overcome? Can the design strategies used in Massively Multiplayer Online Games be a useful guide?

When talking about “Virtual World Libraries”, I am referring to initiatives such as the Info Island Libraries now being run in Second Life, spearheaded by the Alliance Library System. I’m planning that my research will involve interviews with a few the users of these libraries, to learn about their experiences of the online library environment. Here’s an excerpt from the proposal introduction:

Virtual World environments provide libraries with an opportunity to overcome many of the challenges faced by traditional online library interfaces, add some of the benefits of physical environments in a virtual space, and draw on some of the engaging features of online video game systems. This research project aims to unpack and explore these three areas, using a qualitative methodological approach. This will involve a case study of libraries being developed in Second Life, a popular Virtual World. This project aims to produce a set of guidelines for the future design of libraries in virtual worlds, building on the feedback of research participants in concert with video game design principles.

My full proposal is available for download in pdf format. My proposal was assessed by my supervisor for the project, Brenda Chawner. She gave me an A-. I’ve included a snapshot of her marking report on flickr (you should be able to read it if you view it in its original size). In summary, I’ve identified two main themes in her comments that I need to work on:

1. I need to emphasise other studies in the area of online/virtual library services and interfaces (which might include research into virtual reference services, online bibliographic instruction documentation, and so on) that show what the outstanding problems have been for these initiatives. The literature review in my final project will need to include both emperical research that shows what challenges have been discovered by researchers, and also assess the methodologies used by these researchers to obtain these findings. This should provide me with a road forward into my own research analysis. I would prefer to find this existing research data in the area of library studies, but may need to explore other disciplines, too.
2. Brenda would like to see a clearer connection between what my research questions are, and the ways I’m going to obtain answers to these questions from my research. Hopefully this will be helped by identifying those related studies mentioned in #1, which help me make sure that I am using research methods that have returned useful results in the past. Additionally, Brenda suggested that I be more specific about the population that will be included in my research. Hopefully this has become more clear as part of the process of submitting my Human Ethics Committee application - I’m in the middle of this at the moment.

I will hopefully be able to start recruiting participants quite soon, I am just waiting for one or two more things for my HEC application. So, if you’re a Second Life Citizen or Librarian interested in participating in the research, don’t go too far away!