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San Jose State University's School of Library & Information Science is holding its Second Life Campus Opening on May 16th, noon - 6:30 pm PDT on its 16 acre campus site in the Second Life virtual environment. The project began with a Soros Foundation grant to associate director Linda Main to acquire the island and build the campus. Assistant director Jeremy Kemp then worked with a design team of graduate students to develop the site and train faculty, staff and students. To participate in the opening, review this tutorial on how to enter Second Life and find SLIS: <http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/sl/index.php/Campus>http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/sl/index.php/Campus Tour guides and hosts will be available. Dr. Daniel Livingstone from the School of Computing at the University of Paisley in Scotland will be delivering a talk on “Immersive and Web-based Virtual Learning Environments: Bridging the Gap with Sloodle” at 12:00 noon. The talk will be video simulcast into Second Life from the San Jose SLIS. At 5:00 pm Director Ken Haycock will give the dedication. A happy hour and hosted cocktail bar in Second Life follow. We will be giving magic carpet rides around the island and passing out the newest Sloodle.com tools such as Classroom Gestures. Come see the prototype Web-enabled calendaring system. Current Spring classes are entering for short visits. Summer students will use Second Life as a lab to experiment with virtual environments for teaching, service and library space building. See this video for an overview and recent developments: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADE0VSffgis>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADE0VSffgis Livingstone and Kemp also received a first-year grant of £80,000 from Britain’s Eduserv Foundation to develop their Sloodle project. New developments for Spring 2007 include a design laboratory for young adult spaces, an e-portfolio exhibit and new presentation spaces. Beginning in Summer 2007 students will be taking full and partial classes in Second Life. San Jose has grown to become the world’s largest accredited MLIS program, offering a variety of program delivery methods, from more traditional on-site classes, to cohorts such as the world’s only Executive MLIS program, to distance learning, to hybrids. The School’s web site is at slisweb.sjsu.edu **************************************** Dr. Ken Haycock, Professor and Director School of Library and Information Science San Jose State University 408.924.7039; fax: 408.924.2476 <http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/>http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/ IAC