The entire project will be divided into 3 sections: The Library, the University, and a third section for Publishing. Publishing is necessary for the success of the library. Whether the University becomes a part of the project will be up to Hank Ramos, as we've discussed. Combining the library and university into a single project will allow us to centralize learning resources at a single location.
The role of Publishing will be to ensure that the library is being filled with content. Publishing will play both an administrative and marketing role in order to accomlish this. Physically within the library, the Publishing section will consist of an office or two and a conference room where the publishing can meet to discuss the future of the library.
The library itself, or the content section that contains the books, will be further divided in order to provide a navigational structure for the content, much like a RL library.
The main content sections of the library include but are not limited to:
------------------------------------
Informational - This section will contain informative pieces that will help people new to Second Life get a feel for the interface and technical features. It will teach them how to do everything they want to learn to do in Second Life, from clothing design to scripting, etc. This section will contain literature that will *teach* the student how to perform these tasks. There will not be a library of code samples here. For that, I will refer the student to Khamon's resource library. I hope to get some help from the mentors with the content in this section of the library.
Cultural - This section will contain many opinionated pieces on how Second Life has effected its residents and vice versa. There will also be pieces on the history of Second Life. I am looking forward to standing up this section of the library. There should be some interesting reads here. Folks who have been around for a long time will have to help fill this area.
Creative - This will be the section for short stories, poetry, etc. The content will not necessarily help the student learn anything about Second Life, but it will be fun to read. If the Writer's Circle contributes to the content of the library, I would expect most of their contributions to be contained in this area.
------------------------------------
Donovan, Kex, and I divided these sections further, and I have an outline in my Inventory that has it all laid out. We are not completely finished with this structuring of the library yet, but we've made some progress.
The library itself will be designed by Juro Kothari. Juro's a busy guy, but dependable. He'll come through. He wants me to remind him this weekend. Hopefully he'll be able to begin work soon enough. I am kind of holding out a bit until the construction is done. It will be easier to encourage contribution if there is an actual structure in place for the library. Give Juro gentle nudges of encouragement. ^_^
I think that's about all I've got for now.
Neal, I appreciate your contribution as well! This thing won't work without the help of the residents. ^_^