Although I actually finished my INFO580 research project some time ago – in October of last year – I’ve been slow in making it available here on the blog. A combination of work, Christmas, and taking an interesting paper on Web and Intranet Content Management over trimester three has really meant that I’ve barely thought about my research, and Second Life in general, since finishing the project.

Though I’ve been a bit busy lately, my paper (read the full thing as pdf) reflects my ongoing interest in the way that interfaces for engaging with information (particularly library interfaces) might be better designed to facilitate interaction, ease of use, and community. I’ll certainly be continuing to think about these issues in the coming months, particularly as I have been asked to contribute to the upcoming TELSIG National Seminar and talk about my research project and about Second Life Libraries, with the help of some rather brilliant Second Life educators – in June of this year.

Finishing this project marks the end of my Masters in Library and Information Studies. With the completion of this professional qualification, as well as the more recent “certificate of proficiency” I’ve obtained in Web and Intranet Content Managment, I’m now interested in continuing to explore Information Architecture and Interaction Design.

Over the next few weeks I am going to be conducting interviews. A short and sweet breakdown of the project is as follows:

The interviews are:

• confidential
• individual
• one hour in length
• via VOIP or IM

Your answers:

• describe your experiences
• share your thoughts and opinions
• compare and critique the space

The research aims:

• to explore strengths and weaknesses of virtual world environments for libraries
• to pinpoint key challenges for libraries in virtual worlds
• to define best practices for virtual world library design

You can read official documentation about the project: There is an Information Sheet and a full Question Schedule that would-be participants should definitely read. You can leave a comment below this post, or on the project page on my website. Alternatively, you can email or IM me any time at timothy.greig@gmail.com. You might also like to meet me in Second Life. My avatar is named Aramis Maginot.

If you feel that you can’t participate in the formal interviews, but would like to add your comments anyway – regardless of the size of the contribution, you will be helping me to engage with and think about this exciting topic!

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!