Talis Sponsors Cybrary City
TALIS SPONSORS CYBRARY CITY IN SECOND LIFE
7th November 2006, East Peoria, Illinois. Talis and the Alliance Library System are pleased to announce the debut of Cybrary City in Second Life.
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by almost 1.3 million people from around the globe, who are discovering a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment and opportunities.
Together, Talis and the Alliance Library System are building Cybrary City, which will be part of Info Island/Second Life Library services, to provide a space for participating libraries to showcase their local resources. With Cybrary City, there will also be an area for hosting continuing education events, conferences for librarians and the development of information tools for the collaborative library.
Paul Miller, Talis’ Technology Evangelist commented,
“We continue to be impressed by the shared innovation that is so evident in the work of all those contributing to the Second Life Library. As the first library systems vendor developing library services in Second Life, we look forward to exploring the boundaries between traditional services offered in physical branches, on institutional Web sites and through new avenues such as those opened up in Second Life.”
In addition to providing financial support to help make Cybrary City a reality, we will be working with residents who are interested in using components of the Talis Platform technology to strengthen links between their physical, web and Second Life presences.”
Kitty Pope, Executive Director of the Alliance Library System in East Peoria, Illinois commented,
“We are appreciative of Talis partnering with us and sponsoring Cybrary City as part of Info Island/Second Life Library. Cybrary City will be a place where librarians can provide services and learn skills needed for twenty-first century librarianship which will include providing customer services in a virtual world.”
The Second Life Library has attracted the attention of many and recently won second prize in the first global Mashing up the Library competition. It is a testament to international co-operation amongst libraries and information professionals who are seeking compelling ways in which traditional library functions can be extended in to cyberspace, reaching new audiences in ways that are exciting and relevant to them. Residents can go to the virtual library and use a number of resources, programs, and attend events on different topics.
If you would like to join the discussion about Cybrary City and the ways in which environments such as Second Life can enrich the offerings of your library, visit the new Talis Cybrary Forum at www.talis.com/tdn/forum/94. Alternatively, experience Second Life and visit Cybrary City for yourself via secondlife.com, or join the Alliance Second Life Google group to communicate with those already delivering services inside Second Life at groups-beta.google.com/group/ alliancesecondlife.
Cybrary City is not yet officially open but is available for viewing. If you are from a library that would like to contribute to this international effort and have a small presence of your own for virtual office hours or a special collection contact Lorelei Junot in world or lbell927 at gmail.com via email.
About Talis
Talis is an established provider of library and information management software to public and academic libraries and has a long history as a technology innovator, a pioneer for open standards, and as a partner for its customers.
Working closely with world standards bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, and NISO, ongoing research activities include Web Services, Services Oriented Architectures, RDF based metadata and RSS.
Talis has recently announced a new Talis Library Platform which is an open, extensible, semantic web based software platform which will be the foundation upon which next generation applications will be developed. The Talis Platform incorporates semantic content management, a global collections directory, with a Service Oriented Architecture that enables low cost institutional integration.
Through the Talis Developer Network, Talis welcomes developers to join its development community and build the next generation of applications and services on a shared platform.
For more information, visit Talis.com, where you can find detailed information, read our blogs, join our discussion forums, and listen to our industry podcasts or contact Ceri McCall, Senior Manager, Corporate Marketing by emailing ceri.mccall at talis.com or telephoning +44 (0) 870 400 5029.
About Alliance Library System
Alliance Library System (ALS) is a multitype library system in East Peoria, Illinois which provides services to 259 libraries in a 14,000 square mile area. ALS recently won second prize in the Talis Library Mashup Competition for the Alliance Second Life Library project. ALS provides continuing education, resource sharing, consulting and delivery services to its members. ALS also assists members in writing grants and collaborative projects.
November 10th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
Thank you Talis!!!
November 12th, 2006 at 4:52 am
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December 7th, 2006 at 11:52 am
[...] MLC recently opened a virtual library building in Cybrary City in the virtual world Second Life. If you’re in Second Life, please stop by to see our new facility. The avatar for our librarian, Evie Mikazuki, will be happy to show you around if she’s there. Evie recently conducted a tour for “Librarian Luna” (avatar of a former state librarian of Michigan – can you guess who?). If you know nothing about Second Life but would like to learn, MLC has a couple of opportunities for you. This month, MLC is offering free online sessions to introduce libraries to Second Life. The December 14 session is already full, but there are still seats available in the December 18 session. And on February 15, our special program “R U A nOOB?” will include a presentation on Second Life. MLC is still in the exploratory stages with our presence in Second Life. We’re viewing this as an experiment to investigate how Second Life might be used to help us serve our member libraries. Ideas and suggestions are welcome! [...]
December 20th, 2006 at 8:02 am
[...] This is my first attempt at making a movie using the Second Life movie tools, and it came out ok. In the video, I’m sitting down and chatting with Stephen Mandelbrot in Cybrary City. Take a peek! [...]
January 2nd, 2007 at 3:26 pm
[...] A number of staff here at MLC now have avatars in Second Life, although only a couple are active. You can visit MLC in Second Life at our building in Cybrary City. There’s not a whole lot of “there†yet to our building, but Evette is working on it. There are computer monitors for MLC training workshops and for MeL. And, of course, there’s the giant portrait of our fearless leader in the front hall. [...]