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The purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of libraries within Second Life from the viewpoint of the librarians experienced in experimenting within virtual worlds.

Exploration of currently available literature was undertaken to determine the important issues affecting libraries and librarians within virtual worlds. To explore these issues further, ten Second Life librarians were interviewed in order to distinguish which were most important and why.

There is considerable diversity in the opinions of Second Life librarians, but all interviewees shared the belief that their efforts within Second Life had helped others and improved their own professional development. There was a strong consensus that it was important for librarians to embrace Second Life now, in order to be prepared for a future when virtual worlds, although perhaps not Second Life itself, were commonplace.

Virtual worlds are growing in popularity, particularly with younger generations. If they are to be accepted as part of a multidimensional information space, the possibilities available within the virtual space need to be appreciated and understood by the information community. Librarians have a responsibility to aid their users in understanding the complexity and possibilities of information provision and delivery offered by virtual worlds. This can only occur by accepting and supporting experiments in environments like Second Life.

This paper illustrates to the library community how Second Life is currently being used to provide information services, and to further an understanding of how the entire information community can benefit from embracing the possibility of exploring virtual worlds.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in‐depth discussion of reference tools in the virtual world of Second Life.

A description is given of the scripted functions employed by the author, a community virtual library reference desk volunteer of three years.

The paper finds that each tool can meet the information needs of community virtual library patrons.

The paper reveals that reference desk tool programs that run in the virtual world have implications for real world reference desks of the future.

Participation in online courses in both traditional universities and newer for-profit organizations is burgeoning. Indeed, students entering higher education increasingly have experienced online education at the secondary and even primary levels. Students have immense wherewithal with digital media use through messaging, gaming and mobile platforms. Reference librarians in the epoch of Wikipedia and Google are experiencing a steady decline in the number of in-person reference questions. However, disruptive innovations in teaching technologies such as multiuser-virtual-environments (MUVEs) now enable quasi-face-to-face consultations by librarians with students. The use of virtual environments might well be bolstered by the unsustainability of the traditional brick-and-mortar based educational facility grounded interaction due to the new financial strictures on many educational institutions and their stakeholders. In many ways libraries and other elements of higher education are evolving away from physical onsite usage to an online interface that in many ways reflects gaming interfaces. That is, geographically separated learners can meet with librarians together as teams to get informational and technical support through a variety of platforms and interfaces. This chapter is a report on providing the support of an experienced reference librarian through the Second Life virtual world interface. Included are descriptions of Second Life sites and resources and how they might be utilized for library functions. Educational venues in Second Life are describes and explained, as are learner avatar use and Second Life educational experiences. Second Life is a technology that invites experimentation and growth for those in higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to give a brief introduction to Second Life, and to provide an outline of how one academic librarian has got involved with using it and reviews the issues that have arisen from a library perspective.

The paper offers a reflection on whether library activities in Second Life are different from library services in the real world and suggests that Second Life is just another “face” of the library.

Second Life is still in the very early stages of development. There are various barriers and challenges to overcome before it can be used widely within universities. However, this paper shows it does provide an opportunity to experiment and explore what information resources are required in this environment and how librarianship and librarians need to evolve to cater for users in a three dimensional world.

This paper is based on personal experience and offers as many questions as answers.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of how reference service is provided in the 3D virtual world, Second Life (SL), and to further the professional understanding of the newest reference “frontier” and its impact on the library reference world.

A survey study was conducted to examine the nature and practice of reference service provided by volunteer reference practitioners in SL. Different aspects of SL reference were studied, including types of reference questions, types of reference sources, communication methods, reference competencies and differences between SL reference and real life reference.

The paper reveals that, as an independent service point, the SL reference desk serves mostly SL‐related information needs and reference librarians rely heavily on their personal knowledge to answer users' questions. One distinct feature of the SL reference desk is its social nature. It functions both as a place for social gathering and a place for information and reference service.

This study investigates various aspects of SL reference service and introduces the new reference development to a larger audience. Findings from this study will help practitioners who are interested in adopting new technologies in reference work obtain a thorough understanding of SL reference and its value to their respective communities, and hence, design better virtual services for users.

This study is the first study to systematically examine reference activities in SL and present in‐depth views on the nature and practice of SL reference.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current impact of virtual worlds on librarianship and identify significant gains in a new mode of information delivery and immersive learning.

Through exploratory research and observation, the prospective study addresses a very new trend in information delivery and technology within library services.

Provides evidence of global collaboration among information scientists, significant contributions to library collections, and potential for educational opportunities through immersive learning environments.

A small number of librarians are participating in virtual world librarianship in relation to the profession, due to the mode being a very new one. Future research should include studying the needs of library patrons and information seeking behaviors in virtual worlds along with accessibility, security and sustainability.

The study implies many educational opportunities and potential for information organization, information delivery, multimedia, and immersive learning on a global scale.

This study presents significant evidence that virtual worlds have provided a new medium of information delivery and educational opportunities that librarians are currently embracing and sharing with other fields, including medicine, art, science, and education.

This paper aims to examine the emerging field of reference in virtual worlds and attempts to determine its place among existing reference services. The virtual world of Second Life is the focus for these virtual world services. Advantages of virtual world reference are highlighted and drawbacks are discussed.

The paper examines two existing virtual world reference projects in an attempt to determine both the feasibility of virtual world reference and the level of need for such a service.

Both virtual world reference projects were successful and appear to indicate there is a need for reference within Second Life.

Virtual worlds and reference within these realms are at the very early stages. There is room for detailed analysis of issues raised within the paper.

The paper outlines the steps of creating a collaborative and institutional virtual world reference service, including training and implications.

This paper examines the emerging field of research and practice in virtual worlds and will be of significant interest to reference librarians.

This paper aims to give the educator's perspective on developing learning and teaching activities within the virtual world Second Life (SL). The purpose of the research was to develop an understanding of the pedagogical issues involved, to introduce avatar‐based marketing into the marketing curriculum, and to evaluate the potential for this new technology to enhance student learning.

The issues educators need to address in setting up such activities are considered, including context, design and pedagogical issues. It was decided to take an experiential learning approach following exploratory research. A mixed methods approach allowed the collection of quantitative data to profile the cohort and qualitative data to provide rich data of both the student and educators experience.

There is a steep learning curve for educators developing such courses particularly as subject specialists rather than computing specialists. Students developed new skills, used knowledge from the wider module and gained a wider perspective of the potential of e‐marketing as a whole.

Experiential learning linked to reflective practice is one way in which learning and teaching in virtual worlds can be integrated into the marketing curriculum. The growth in teenage virtual worlds means the future intake of students may demand new styles of learning and teaching. There was a limited period in which to collect data.

This paper provides original research on developing and evaluating learning and teaching in SL within the marketing curriculum and addresses a gap in the literature on managing large groups in such environments.

This chapter discusses two instructional designs that sought to leverage the multiuser virtual environment Second Life to support learning and instruction with both undergraduate and graduate students at two different universities. We examine each of these curricular developments in depth and provide findings from research conducted with each. Using data collected from students and faculty, we describe 11 research-based virtual world design principles that emerged from each experience that include such suggestions as Create opportunities for sustaining virtual community beyond a task and Expect your learners to go off-task. These principles may be used by readers to guide future designs that use virtual worlds to support learning.

Applications of online Second Life (SL) prevail over the world. The purpose of this paper is to make a review and synthesis of recent research studies on SL.

Documental analysis is employed. Totally, 135 research publications, published in 2006‐2008, are reviewed and synthesized.

Findings are as follows: the research studies on SL have been widened and deepened; SL has been widely applied in education and its research approach relies on descriptive methods; and SL has versatile charm for educators but pros and cons of SL in education simultaneously exist.

Some articles might not be reviewed; authors did their best to collect data from relevant electronic databases.

This paper indicates the strengths and limitations of SL.

This paper identifies trends of recent research studies of as well as issues in using SL. Users and researchers of SL may realize trends of and issues in SL.