My vportfolio for my Second Life graduate library class: Competency F

My introduction to Second Life was through my graduate library class. I've been learning, doing, and creating for the past four months. There are certain competencies that some of my projects fulfilled. This particular post is about how I fulfilled it.


F. Use the basic concepts and principles related to the creation, evaluation, selection, acquisition, preservation and organization of specific items or collections of information:

I think I showed this in several of the projects. In the service project with Renaissance Island, I was working with their library. The theme of the island is an environment specific to Tudor times with a special emphasis on Shakespeare.

They wanted items in the library related to that.  They had created notecards that served as bibliographies on Tudor books.  It was also my understanding that they had notecards of Shakespeare books.  So I thought they might have a use for in-world books of books or items of that era. I created a sample book of armariums -- a furniture item common in the bookrooms/libraries/scribe rooms(scriptoriums) of that time. I did not finalize the book as I could not find the reference for a couple of images.  However, another Ren isl inhabitant, Serenek Timeless used the book to make an armarium for their library. It is displayed in my SLIS vportfolio room. The bottom cubicles were used to house scrolls and incunables (bound books in various forms before 1500)

I also recreated a book that was published in 1581.  The Library of Congress had scanned a book "Francis Drake" by Breton. I recreated the book in-world with a preface on how to read the lettering (sounds) as there are a few differences in printing conventions (for example v was often used in place of u).

I also collected a variety of maps published between 1489-1575 and "published" them in an in-world book showing how the European image of the world evolved with their exploration of the Americas.

In another "collection", I collected images by Dorothy Lange on the relocation of Japanese Americans in California as they were taken from their homes to San Bruno. (San Bruno was where they moved to first before they were relocated to desert internment camps/prisons).  I chose and organized the images in a slideshow that was presented in an art gallery for the Scottish/American collaboration.

In another "collection", I collected images by women surrealists.  I chose which women surrealists would be represented in the exhibit, their images and what information was displayed in the short bios.  This was hard to do as there were other women also of merit and of course, other images and much more information.  I did provide links to bibliographies so that a person could pursue the information on their own.

The above information that I collected and presented are "preserved" in a virtual format.  There are some caveats: they are preserved as long as Second Life exists and those items are shown. With changing technologies, as we preserve things in new technologies, they become available to those who use those technologies.  However as technologies evolve, older technologies get abandoned at faster and faster rates. Paper replaced the papyrus, books replaced scrolls.  When Second Life is replaced (and since it also functions as a business -- if it goes out of business), items created or archived in the SL format will also cease to exist unless the SL world and technology itself is preserved in some library or museum archive.