DLF members have expressed a strong interest in figuring out how digital libraries can participate in, and contribute to, virtual immersive environments like Second Life. I've strongly encouraged this exploration, and this year we will be funding a small initiative to develop a foray into one possible reinvention of the library.

This is an internal effort, modest in aims and similarly scaled in resources. But regardless of its size, we see this as a community effort. As über:virtual-patriot, I've required that a proposal be written prior to release of DLF funds to generate shared agreement about what we all want to try to accomplish.

Speaking for myself and the able crew of contributors (which is fast growing beyond my count of attached digits), we welcome feedback on this proposal, and I'd like to solicit comments from readers. Looking over the below - the proposal in draft form - tell us what works, what doesn't, what we should add or subtract, and generally how we might make it better. I've left out the budget because it is unnecessary detail (it's around $10K for those of you who are curious) and the timeline, which is obviously subject to flux.

(N.B.: I want to note that although I wish I could lay claim to drafting the proposal, which I think is already wonderfully eloquent, I cannot; primary authorship rests with the contributors defined by the suggested governing board, but it truly includes the contributions of many - and hopefully, many more).

DLF In Second Life: A Proposal
May 29, 2007

Overview
The Digital Library Federation is an organization that promotes and supports a collaborative approach to defining and realizing the full potential of digital libraries, and the role of libraries and librarians in the future. To further this goal, we propose a structured exploration of Second Life, and the issues and opportunities presented by a virtual environment in the context of digital libraries and their roles in scholarship and publishing.

Objectives
Virtual environments present a completely new paradigm for information creation and interaction. As simulated, three dimensional spaces (four dimensional, counting time) built and populated by their own users enable people to create new types of content, and then deliver and interact with it (and each other) in new ways. As the most successful current virtual environment in terms of adoption and growth, Second Life may represent a revolutionary breakthrough for digital libraries as they seek more powerful and flexible ways for scholars and people to use information.

But our collective understanding of Second Life and its possibilities, limitations and implications for the future is incomplete. The environment continues to evolve rapidly. And while some digital libraries have begun to experiment in the space, serious exploration by a large number of libraries has yet to occur. Most of the current presentations and uses of information in Second Life mimic present digital library activities. Richer experiences in a virtual world are likely possible and must be further explored. Similarly, digital library building and development opportunities in a virtual world are markedly different, and more expansive, than in our real world, and must also be further explored.

Accordingly, this initiative proposes a coordinated investigation into Second Life by the digital library community, as a community. The proposal has three main objectives:

1. To establish a social framework within Second Life that will foster engagement by DLF’s member institutions with each other; with their faculty, students, and staff; with other Second Life libraries and like participants; and with the Second Life community as a whole;
   
2. To conduct experimentation on the form, substance, processes and social order of digital scholarship by leveraging the inherent properties of a virtual world to create new tools and environments rapidly and at low cost; and
   
3. To apply the standards and best practices of library and information science in a serious analysis of Second Life as a living, evolving information environment. In a platform originally predicated on a gaming environment that has since grown organically, its underlying information design and infrastructure has not yet evolved to robustly support functions and characteristics such as search, preservation, and provenance.

To support each objective, we suggest a set of goals, along with an associated timeframe.

Social Framework
To build a social framework, we propose the following activities. These will help introduce Second Life to DLF members who have yet to experiment with it while allowing those DLF members already involved in Second Life to connect, share knowledge with others, and collaboratively improve both their institutional spaces and the DLF space. Finally, but of critical interest, they will increase community building within DLF and help introduce DLF members to the community support features of Second Life, providing a space for collaboration, distributed research, and resource sharing.

• Create an open mailing list for DLF members interested in Second Life
  
• Provide regular updates on progress to all DLF members via the DLF-announce list and a public blog
  
• Offer structured, personalized support for avatar creation and acclimation for DLF members (including remote support provided via email, telephone, Skype and/or IM, as well as hands on sessions at future Forums)
  
• Conduct regular events in the DLF space (parties, poster sessions, lectures, etc.) in cooperation with other organizations within Second Life
  
• Provide open space for DLF members to experiment with building and collaboration
• Announce and conduct a grand opening of DLF’s Second Life presence in conjunction with the 2007 Fall Forum to show progress to date and future plans
  
• Present DLF workshops, session presentations, and Birds of a Feather sessions at DLF Forums
  

Research and Experimental Development
In order to test the potential of a virtual environment to redefine the substance and format of digital libraries, we propose a small set of collaborative development and building activities in Second Life. It is assumed that the main thrust of DLF development and building activities will be around radical experimentation and pushing the boundaries of the possible, rather than building permanent collections or simply creating replicas of existing buildings. The following set of initiatives, chosen to test the various attributes of Second Life, are a proposed starting point; the actual breadth and depth of building and development activity will be determined by (and contingent on) the extent of DLF community engagement that evolves over the course of the entire Second Life exercise. Each building/development effort would be taken to the prototype stage (i.e., usable but not necessarily polished), so that we can determine their success and relevance, and evaluate the more compelling aspects of the world.

• Purchase an island for DLF in Second Life. Initially this island will be located adjacent to the InfoIsland archipelago, to foster ties to the already strong community of in-world librarians there.
  
• Maintain connections with Info Island, NMC, and Sloodle, as well as developing a relationship with Linden Lab. They might possibly provide advice, but rather more importantly, we need to ensure enough participation with the SL community to obtain updates on developments pertaining to the essential mechanics of the world.
  
• Build an initial collection of Americana resources (assembled by the diverse members of DLF), to demonstrate federation, explore possible tie-ins to the DLF Aquifer initiative, and identify tools that might be developed for collection building & delivery.
  

Extend the Americana collection by creating a progressive display over time of American Social History with role-playing, interaction, and a series of staged time periods ranging from early to the present, using appropriate and compelling digital library collections.

• Create a general system for easily storing metadata for objects, providing search, and coordinating tagging and related activities
  
• Explore the possibility of building other in-world library resources
  
• Experiment with applying preservation tools to in-world objects and islands
  

Standards and Best Practices
We will research and circulate documented analysis on each of the following topics, in order to further both DLF and community-at-large knowledge in each of these areas. These papers can be posted to various sites to provide a service to others interested in Second Life development, as well as made available through Second Life.

• Metadata creation, storage, search, and moderation
  
• Improved general search and discovery
  
• Preservation possibilities in Second Life (in coordination with Jerome McDonough’s [@UIUC] game preservation group and any other related efforts, focused on the preservation of SL, including a possible introduction of a "Creative Commons"-like license for third party preservation of in world content, and a way to tag objects with it) (curious: have there been any discussions to date by anyone in the library/cultural/research community with CC about the feasibility of extending CC into virtual domains?)
  
• Best practices for building library spaces and services in Second Life
  
• Annotated bibliography on best practices for teaching and research in Hi-Ed SL
  
• Any other subjects that present themselves during the investigation
  

Governance
The maintenance and oversight of DLF Island will be performed by the DLF Second Life committee, initially comprising (but hopefully soon growing):

• Rachel Gollub (co-chair, project manager)
  
• Tom Cramer (co-chair)
  
• Colleen Cahill
  
• Tim DiLauro
  
• Geneva Henry
  
• Anthony Smith
  

Conclusion
The initiatives listed above define an open but focused approach to investigating Second Life. The panelists from the DLF Spring '07 Forum have volunteered to consult and share resources, and a small committee has formed to carry out these plans. Additional resources, in the form of a student or intern, would be helpful in meeting the goals listed, since all work is likely to be volunteer effort. Expenses are expected to include teaching sessions in real life to introduce DLF members to Second Life, periodic face-to-face meetings of the participants to provide accessibility to new members (though most meetings will occur in Second Life), and the cost of purchasing and maintaining an island. The result will be a set of documents and projects exploring the possibilities inherent in a three-dimensional community-centered system, a network of DLF members with a deeper understanding of how libraries and their services may translate to different environments, and closer collaboration and ties within the DLF community as a whole.