The saying goes that “there is no constant but change;" this holds true in both the real world as well as the virtual world of Second Life. Over the last several years this has applied well to the library presence in Second Life, originally founded by the Alliance Library System of Illinois, the project that started as a small rented plot and grew rapidly. At the peak the project spanned nearly a dozen sims between core islands and special projects.

Then, as we all know, the economy went south and with it library funding. To preserve real life services the Alliance Library System made the hard choice to defund their Alliance Virtual Library  (AVL) project. Fortunately the head of the project, Lori Bell, decided that she didn’t want to see the project simply end. And so she made the decision to offer to pass the torch to three of the principal volunteers and department heads of the Alliance Virtual Library.

This offer resulted in Abbey Zenith, Hypatia Dejavu, and Rocky Vallejo taking up running the core of the AVL project under the new name of the Community Virtual Library. CVL would comprise Info Island, Info Island International, and Cybrary Island II with the addition of Imagination Island. All the remaining sims were passed on to other interested parties or terminated as their tier periods ran out.

To support this effort and preserve educational pricing, CVL began the long process of founding a nonprofit organization. This was needed because the new organization would have no real world organization supporting it, funding it, and providing nonprofit status. CVL would have to operate on donations, grants, and under its own auspices.

Fortunately for our library community this all worked. The nonprofit was formed, our volunteers stayed, and interested patrons continued to come and use the library. All was stable and good… but remember that thing about change?

The change this time came with news. Although the Internal Revenue Service had just granted CVL nonprofit status, Linden Labs had made a decision to end nonprofit and educator discounts altogether. The only saving grace is that they would allow qualified organizations to renew for 12, 18, or 24 months at the old rate. And so we, the CVL board talked, took meetings, crunched numbers, and reached some conclusions. We could manage to keep and renew all of the sims except for Info Island International if we could be reasonably successful with a November of fundraising activity.

November came and went with many fund raising events which received an amazing response. Thanks to volunteers, supporters, and a couple of anonymous donors, CVL is able to renew all of the core sims for another 24 months. This assures both the viability of the Community Virtual Library and  a minimum of begging for the next two years.

Out of this shift the biggest shift is underway. The Community Virtual Library is clearing out Info Island International in preparation for its deletion in January 2011. The hole left by removing the sim will be filled by shifting Cybrary Island II into its place. This has the advantage of not only filling the hole but also giving the institutions on Cybrary II better access to CVL’s core services and collections on Info Island.

In this shift there were three large concerns for us; the collections already on Info Island, the LIS Student Union on International, and the Reference Desk on International. All three of these resources are popular and speak to the core missions of the Community Virtual Library.

Our collections will be moving into a smaller footprint with a slightly larger focus on web based resources and rotating collections to use the space well. In addition the buildings have been redesigned to be friendly, easy on the eyes, and as low on lag as we can manage on a busy sim.

At the same time we’re working to accommodate the Student Union as part of our commitment to library science students. This means we’re shrinking some areas and moving others to clear an area to allow them to move their facility and displays over to Info Island without too much disruption.

Finally, the reference desk will be moving back to Info Island where it started several years ago. It will be right next to the current welcoming plaza in front of the auditorium which is the hub of the sim. The new desk is in a friendly style with a ramp for easy access and a bike rack like any good library should have. We’re expecting service to shift from the International location to the Info Island location right after Christmas. This should be a seamless transition to a new spot.

Thanks to the dedication of our volunteers and the kindness of our donors the Community Virtual Library will be with us for at least the next two year. That’s a very long time in the terms of virtual worlds and when we reach that point I somehow think we’ll figure out how to continue.