COMMUNITY VIRTUAL LIBRARY COMMEMORATES ITS DIGITAL LEGACY

The Community Virtual Library is described on the Metaverse Library website as “a ‘real’ virtual world library maintained by information professionals which supports the VWEC and digital citizens seeking information across the metaverse,” which is a reference to a physical building located in Second Life. Inside, it has books that link out to the Gutenberg Project, but there is something else about it that most visitors may miss.

On the left side wall of the main building of the Community Virtual Library in Second Life are two rows of plaques. They all bear names, lit by an eternal flame and a fountain flowing below. Nothing indicates why these names are there. However, clicking each will provide a notecard.

The notecards clarify that the names given on the plaques are the avatar names of people who have passed on. They also tell the real life names of the individual that was behind each avatar. All of these individuals were part of the Community Virtual Library group and their work is part of the group’s history, and their names on the wall part of the Community Virtual Library digital legacy.

Those featured on the wall were real life librarians in addition to their Second Life involvement. However, each of them were more than that. The individual notecards provide obituaries, remembrance writings from fellow Community Virtual Library Group members, and other insights. Many of them were early pioneers in bringing the idea of librarianship into virtual world environments.

While these names are on the side of a physical building, they remind us that it takes people to make things happen. Even in a time and place where technology can do many things for us, and let us be anywhere – including in virtual worlds – it still connects us as people. Without a few to have the vision to look forward, we might not have reached where we are.

There are librarians still associated with the Community Virtual Library today. While the Community Virtual Library itself is not affiliated with the American Library Association, some of the librarians in Second Life are and also belong to the group American College and Research Libraries, which you can often find touring the metaverse to discover new ways to connect people on topics such as digital literacy and communication of information.

As Community Virtual Library commemorates its digital legacy, it continues to look forward to the future.