Maria Inês Tomaél

American Library Association (Ala) no Second Life (Sl)

The American Library Association (ALA) is inserted in the 3D virtual reality environment with the ALA Island in Second Life (SL). The purpose of this study was to analyze the virtual support to librarians in SL, to identify ALA products and services offered in SL and to examine its infrastructure. The document analysis method was used to obtain useful data about ALA Island as well as a questionnaire which was sent to an ALA librarian. The results show that the main purpose of ALA performance in SL is dissemination of projects, physical and virtual events, and support for libraries in their professional lives. In addition to SL, there are, embedded in ALA, Web 2.0 apps such as blogs, wikis, social networks, among others. ALAs trajectory was examined as well as librarian support. The librarian support in SL is performed by robots and interactive tools, such as notecards and informative hyperlinks. In SL, the ALA Island makes services and products available to help librarians, related with offices, committees and institutions. In addition, it offers services and products in its site, and office in Washington D.C and its representatives. More studies are needed on the resources of the ALA and SL and the integration of librarians in Virtual Reality (VR) to help and bring this opportunity to these professionals.