First, I spoke on the panel as a representative of the ACRL Instruction Section. If that Section is in itself at all representative of other ALA groups, then ALA is already functioning to some degree in a hybrid fashion. I talked about the Instruction Section’s PRIMO committee that does all of its work asynchronously and does not meet at conferences. And I talked about the completely virtual Library School Outreach Task Force that I chaired for the Instruction Section. We never met in person either, and instead, for a year and a half, conducted all of our work through phone conference calls, email and a wiki.

Prior to our last phone conference call, we found out that ALA considers phone conference calls to be meetings. The open meeting policy meant that I had to publicize the call in advance and invite participation. I did that and we had some welcome guests who listened in. The only issue was confidentiality, as we had solicited some information from library schools with a guarantee of confidentiality, so could not share that information with our guests. Confidentiality is an issue too, for groups like PRIMO that conduct “peer review” for online instructional materials, as well as for listserv and other discussions regarding personnel who may have applied for open positions, as well as some other matters.

When I spoke on Saturday at ALA, someone did raise the issue of revenue derived through conferences. He was concerned that ALA would lose money if it decided not to hold Midwinter Conferences in person, for instance. Someone (it may have been the same person, though I can’t quite remember now) then said that ALA was already losing exhibitors as there were fewer people going through exhibits.

All of that made me think that ALA needs to focus on its mission and figure out different funding streams, as has been suggested, rather than on the potential for lost revenue if e-participation is expanded. There are many people who can’t afford to attend conferences, as has also been stated. Second Life does offer an excellent additional option to draw more people in, though we do need to be aware both of the access requirements (high capacity graphics card and high speed connection), and of the fact that simultaneous avatar capacity in a single location is limited to about 65. Satellite viewing within SL can help expand this capacity greatly, though, and you can participate through text or voice chat, as well as IM. Whether or not this will be a viable alternative in the long run remains to be seen, but IMHO, it’s certainly worth exploring.

ACRL will be holding the first of some planned panel discussions in SL on its site on the ALA Island on Tuesday, August 12th, 5 pm – 6 pm SLT (PDT), on starting an academic library in SL. Please join us there or ask a colleague in SL to project so you can listen and observe.
Esther
estherg@library.ucla.edu

My prior post on using SL was meant as simply another avenue for people to attend conferences virtually, and one which enables people to have a closer to f2f experience than most other technologies. I felt that there could be more than one way to connect virtually to ALA conferences. For those who could not or chose not to use SL or other virtual worlds, there could also be other technologies used such as Elluminate, Adobe Connect, etc.

I attended an ACRL event using Meebo a couple of months ago and it actually worked fairly well. There are many free or inexpensive ways to connect and network virtually these days. I look forward to the options future conferences may offer.

I propose that virtual conferences, combined with the kind of professional networking that happens with blogs and Twitter or other social networks, could almost replace face-to-face.

I would not want to see large conferences moving to Second Life, however (or other similar virtual worlds). There are too many additional barriers. For people in rural or international settings, the bandwidth could be a problem (I suspect this would be an issue for me in Egypt).

And many might not have the right hardware on their computers. I worked at a well-funded ARL a little over a year ago and could not access Second Life on my work machine because it didn’t have the right video card. And this was on a pretty new machine, nothing extraordinary but more than adequate for a reference and instruction librarian.

Certain technologies seem ubiquitous when they aren’t. My point is this: let’s make sure we’re not erecting new barriers when we dismantle the old.

The cost for ALA to set something up by the next conference would be minimal, and by doing so would allow the growing number of librarians and library staff in Second Life to attend and participate. Those who have never been in Second Life could register ahead of time (free) and go through a basic orientation prior to the event. Virtual worlds are here to stay and this could be a good introduction for many who are not yet familiar.

There are also programs like Adobe Connect, Emmulate, etc. These are all useful and I have attended dozens of virtual seminars this way. However, those types of programs do not allow for the same level of interaction participants can experience in Second Life. The next ALA conference held in SL would be a progressive move and one many would appreciate.

http://2008.thenextweb.org/

I don’t think it will even take us until 2015 to build a hybrid organization and convention. And if it does, it will be a real shame. We will be far behind the curve by then – as a profession we are smart enough to pull this off and crafty enough to find the resources to do it.