Outline and research

This week I realized that there are only 5 weeks left to write my paper, one of which is Thanksgiving week, during which I probably won't be doing any work. This leaves 4 weeks, with 2 other final projects to accomplish. The panicking started, the planning kicked in, and I created an outline for my final project. This was trickier than it sounds, as I'm doing SL stuff for THREE different people.

The first is for the Leon County Public Library. As the actual organization, I'm most concerned with their happiness. I think that if the LCLCPL is happy, the grades will come because the LCLCPL wouldn't be happy with a lousy plan/paper. This project is going to be a hybrid of a plan and a term paper. I plan to set it up like a term paper, addressing the different aspects of entering SL as a library, including real-time reference, asynchronous reference (also called Collection Management in the paper, as a virtual reference environment's collection will mostly be links to different things), and special considerations for the public library - like how, in many cases, only one avatar can be created from each computer. This is a problem for public libraries, as many people will probably create their avatars at the library where they can get librarian help. (Luckily, there's a solution to this problem, which will be addressed in the paper).

The second is for this class, the VRE. Interestingly enough, I may not necessarily have to write a paper for this class, as the third turn-in-able is a "submission of your final project". So it may be better for me to simply turn in the presentation that I will be giving to the LCLCPL, which will be much like the presentation I give in class. In fact, the class presentation will actually be a warm-up for the LCLCPL presentation, so I will have a chance to tweak it and make it better for the final organization.

The third is for my Management of Information Collections class. This paper will be focusing primarily on the asynchronous part of SL, the development of the virtual collection. This paper will mostly be derived from the paper for the LCLCPL, with the reference parts taken out. This is acceptable because the big paper for the LCLCPL is not being submitted for a grade, and submitting it to the organization is part of the final projct requirement.

So this week I spent mostly doing research. I've been searching the databases for articles on SL, how SL is used in libraries, especially public libraries, and I must say so far I've found a lot of personal narrative-type articles, which is not really what I want. I think putting one or two of those in the paper for the LCLCPL would be acceptable, as the librarians in the meeting will want to know how other librarians felt about SL, but I need to ensure my discussion is backed up with more academic evidence.

Once I write a first draft of the paper for the LCLCPL, then I can start planning my presentation. I think for class, the presentation will be mostly Powerpoint, with lots of pictures from SL. As a B.S-holding Business Administration major, I have been taught to be leery of Powerpoint presentations. So many people cut and paste stuff onto the slides and then just read the slides, which is really the worst thing you can do in a business presentation. At least I'm aware of this and so I can make sure not to make that mistake in my own presentation. For the LCLCPL presentation, Helen wants to actually visit SL and see what's inside, so that will be the second part of the presentation. I thought about putting it first, but I'm afraid she will be so enamored of the virtual world that she won't take my research seriously. In the preliminary research I've done so far, nearly every article is advising for public libraries to wait a few more years, until more peoples' computers catch up with the SL technology, before sinking a lot of time and money into a place where their patrons might not yet be, and I want to know she will be able to hear that message.