New Music Library - suggestions/input requested

Hi everyone,

I have been asked to develop a music collection for the Second Life Library 2.0. It will be housed on the second floor of the Bell Library on Info Island. I have limited space, and only 125 prims, so I will have to be very creative in my decorating and resources.

It would be very easy to just find a few general music history websites, and use objects that link to them and open a browser window from within Second Life. There are many collections that do that sort of thing now. And it is important to link to a few authoritative sites for music history, so I will do some of that.

But I would like to do something a little different as well. It is my personal philosophy as a librarian in Second Life that libraries and librarians exist to serve the reference needs of the SL avatar itself. What are the needs of a Second Life citizen, in regards to a music library collection? What comes to mind is the need to know how to do things in Second Life. For example, I would like to provide information about how to stream a live music performance on your land in Second Life. I think that is information that would be very useful and in demand by musicians. [and there was a great discussion on the forum about this earlier today - thanks to everyone that participated, especially the great instructions by Craig Altman! I've copied that text for my project file, and will definitely give you credit, Craig.]

What I am asking for from all of you are your suggestions about what you, the SL musician, or music lover, would want to find as resources in a music library collection in Second Life. I am also curious to know about how you would use the space. Many library spaces are furnished with chairs and couches. If the music collection is furnished in such a way, are you likely to sit down and hang out? Would you sit down while you use the resources in the library, or are you more likely to just remain standing while you read things? (wondering if i can save some prims, if people don't use the furniture much). Are there other uses for the space? Would you attend a class, performance, or public presentation there?
Please visit the SLURL:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/187/42/42/?title=Music%20Library%20Collection
to view the location. The SLUR brings you into a central area. Just head southeast to the three tall green glass towers of the Bell Library. The music collection is on the second floor of the west tower.

If additional space is needed for gatherings and events, the Reader’s Garden will be relocating to a place near the library to handle larger groups.


I encourage you all to send me your ideas and feedback, even if it is just a sentence or two. And if anyone is interested in helping to develop some of the resources, please speak up. I’m no expert with Shoutcast, for example! I am thinking along the lines of basic notecards that explain how to do various things that musicians need to know to perform in SL. Even basics like a list and review of the various makers of scripted instruments, that your avatar could play, while you stream in your real life performance, or recording. We could try to keep a venue list, but that would be difficult to keep up to date. It would need to be divided by genre, and I would need some volunteers active in those specific types of music to help me keep it up to day. But it could prove very useful. Maybe a bulletin board where musicians could post a flyer for an upcoming performance?

I know we are all very busy, but please take a minute to give me your suggestions, if you have any. There is no use for a collection that does not meet anyone’s needs. I want to make this collection something that is a valuable resource for the music community. Please help me create something that we can all be proud of and turn to as a valuable resource for the music community. The primary focus will be on classical music, but i would like to have small collections for jazz and rock as well. If anyone is an expert in those fields, I would welcome your help in developing resource lists of important performers/composers (both historical and current), and some information we could distribute in same way. We can give out notcards, certainly. We can also look into streaming in YouTube or comparable products of performances.

You may reply to this forum with your suggestions. You may reach me in world by IM to Princess Ivory. My email address is [email]princess.ivory.sl@gmail.com[/email]. Or you can give me a notecard. Please name it with your name and the words “music collection” so I will know what it is. Keeping the discussion in the forum as much as possible might prove helpful to everyone else, as we can all read the suggestions and input, which may spark new ideas among others.

I look forward to hearing your suggestions! Sorry this is so long! Thanks for taking time to read it.

Thank you,
Princess Ivory

OK, here are a couple resources off the bat, I think you'd do well to bring this up at the second place I'll link to here. First though is the slmusic blog that Astrin started a while back, it's been somewhat dormant lately, but it at least has links to good existing tutorials and a venue list:
http://blog.slmusic.org/

A new but active forum that I'd suggest looking for further help is:
http://slmc.myfastforum.org/index.php

I also believe that a good history of live music in SL would be good - maybe as a side project on the history wiki. I know Jaycatt Nico was working on putting a museum together in-world sometime back, but haven't heard about that in a while.

Hi Princess,

What a cool project! I think it would be neat to have a section of global music, i.e. not just what's popular around the globe, or not even 'ethnic' music, but recordings of indigenous music from dying cultures, or from cultures that are being/have been assimilated into mainstream society and no longer have someone to carry on musical traditions.

These are good suggestions, thank you. Tutorials and venues are good to have. If anyone is very active in the live music scene in SL, I'd appreciate your input. I'm active with a classical music group, but I need more input that just that!

Princess Ivory

This is a good idea. I would think the best thing would be to find websites with midi files, and compile a directory of them to post/distribute. Anyone out there a big fan of indigenous music? Let me know if you are aware of any good websites with info and midi files. And if someone is really drawn to this area, I'd love a volunteer to help pull that section of the collection together!

Thanks - keep the good ideas coming!

Princess Ivory

This is such a cool project! I'm not a musician, but a total live music fan btw.
/me waves at Kaklick : hope to catch one of your gigs again soon, and thanks for the slmc forum link hope people start posting their gigs there too. Can't join every fangroup in the world unfortunately.

Here's my two cents in addition to all the other tips already: maybe something like a notice board with announcements of festivals or regular events. I'm a member of many musicians fan groups and still manage to miss festivals, bigger events and such, despite using the events and live music search every day.
Also general info about attending live music would i think not go amiss. For instance, whenever i'm at a live music gig, there's always people asking how to hear the music, how to stop the typing noise etc.
And i wonder if there's some way to get something like a linkboard going to musician's own blogs and such? I know several musicians have their own blogs where samples of their music can be heard.

Sounds like a cool project Princess.
Have seen any of my texture experiments or read or seen my attempts on different object or furniture texture experiments about different things I have tried?
Anyway probably not.
This is what I have learned.
You can literally make complex item with one prim providing you have the right texture made.
It is bit more tricky I have discovered if you use more then one transparent texture.
Yet entire square prim can be made to look like almost anything with right textures.
One way of creating of 3d feel is using textures relating to whatever it is you want in liabary.
For example texture of different type of music players representing time and age of music on prim with similar type of art displays representing the music, time period of music on that prim shelf with links to websites.
Also from experience the problem I had with last SL libary O visited is they had books on notecards.
I never got a chance to finish reading any of those books they quit working.
It was very disappointing when I really wanted to read Alice in wonderland last time.
Everyone has different taste I suggest you do wide variety of different types of music styles,etc. or at least enough to cover different areas.
Jazz, Classical, Blues, Modern,etc whatever you have enough prims to cover.