In April 2006, the Alliance Library System (ALS) of Illinois launched the Alliance Virtual Library (AVL, initially called Second Life Library 2.0) in the multi‐user virtual environment (MUVE), Second Life. This innovation spawned the Info Archipelago populated by libraries, professional bodies, consultants, librarians, visitors, and users – all real organizations and real people, interacting in this virtual world in virtual spaces such as Info Island and Cybrary city. As this review is written, three years after the launch of the AVL, overall use of Second Life has stalled, but Info Archipelago remains populated and well visited. What is the secret of its success? Although not written as a success story, this book provides a wealth of information for librarians thinking about creating a virtual library service, along with educators, sociologists, and researchers interested in virtual worlds and what makes them work. As Claudia L'Amoreaux Education Programs Manager at Linden Lab (Linden Lab initiated and owns Second Life) says in the book's blurb, “This is not just a collection of extraordinary stories. It's an operating manual for success!”
Indeed, the book is more than a collection of stories. While it does contain the “stories” of librarians, libraries, educators, and service providers, it also includes analyses, models of practice, reflections, and observations that help define the phenomena of virtual worlds, virtual library services and, to some extent, virtual classrooms. The relevance of the book thus extends beyond virtual libraries to real libraries, online learning, and virtual worlds as a whole.
The book is divided into three main parts, “Virtual worlds and real libraries” (three chapters), “Alliance Virtual Library project” (11 chapters), and “Virtual worlds and education” (six chapters). The primary focus is on the AVL. The 24 contributors to the book (almost all North American) include library directors, technologists, librarians, and other information professionals, educators, and consultants. Many will be familiar to readers as innovators in use of technology in libraries and library education. The topics they cover range from examples and analyses of MUVEs to issues encountered in all libraries whether virtual or not – including management, collections, reference services, environments to engage teens and patrons with interests in specific genres – and how they play out in the virtual world. Opportunities are presented and difficulties discussed.
The quality of contributions is almost uniformly high. The least satisfactory part of the book is that on education because it only skims the surface of the many issues addressed. The foreword, by Stephen Abram, “a library and information futurist”, is worth reading on its own, putting Second Life and its Info Island into a broader context and reminding readers that the notion of a virtual library is still very new.
A good deal of the credit for this book must go to the editors, Lori Bell, Director of Innovation for ALS, and Rhonda B. Trueman, a reference librarian at Johnson and Wales University in North Carolina. They provide thoughtful introduction and afterword to the book, introducing themes then wrapping them up sufficiently to bring coherence to the whole without over‐editorializing. The individual chapters themselves are well edited, and the book manages to convey a sense of unity without losing the sense of the individual “stories” and their authors.
Despite being produced very quickly, the book contains several full colour plates which give a good feel for the Info Archipelago and its inhabitants. There is a short glossary of key terms. An accompanying web site provides a little more information about the contributors, including their Second Life names, and links to the ALS and the AVL blog.
This book is a “must read” for all involved in – or thinking of getting involved in – “Library 2.0” projects. It also has something to say about the future of library services in a world where, as the costs of provision of “physical” services increases, people of all ages embrace the internet for information and entertainment. If you are interested in real libraries, even if the idea of virtual worlds leaves you cold, at least dip into this book.
