When I interviewed the May 2010 Volunteer of the Month, Valibrarian Gregg (real life: Valerie Hill), we were comfortably seated in the lovely building that she was instrumental in building for the Texas Women’s University School of Library and Information Studies.  At that institution, she is working on her Ph.D., and her research will focus on libraries and educators in Second Life.

Just as importantly, she had just, that past weekend, graduated from the University of Washington with a Certificate in Virtual Worlds, a program that she took in lieu of an independent study at TWU.  Check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeXGV_zzHIE to see a machinima that she recorded as a mixed reality video/machinima of the graduation.

In addition, she’s a full-time elementary school librarian!  Whew!

Val got involved in SL through Jenny Levine’s blog -  The Shifted Librarian.  The blog talked about the ALA presence in SL and she was intrigued.  She began to volunteer at the reference desk in the summer of 2007, and has been here ever since.

Her enrolment in the UW course has obviously taken time away from SL, but she says that they learned many skills, and had an excellent project that could be important for the future, in the name of Cybersecurity Island.  This will be an education experience designed to help people learn about cyber safety.

Back in SL, she has begun to offer programs and events at the TWU SLIS island.  She had a panel of librarians at the TWO research symposium in April, and expects to have more events at TWU in the future.

Gregg is also active with the Texas Library Association, and she has begun an interest group in SL.

Second Life isn’t her only domain.  She also works with educators in Reaction Grid, an open source virtual world.  She explains that Reaction Grid looks very similar to SL, but is not as fully developed, so there simply isn’t as much ‘there’ there.  K-12 teachers are interested in Reaction Grid, though, because “there is better security for young people.”

Gregg hopes to teach library and information science at the university level once she completes her doctorate, although she says it will be difficult to leave her job.

In her leisure time, Gregg love to hike, and ‘of course’ read.  Her husband recently retired and took up cooking, allowing her time for her studies and involvement in SL.  Her two children are grown, and both attended her virtual graduation from UW.

Gregg says “I don’t know what the future of virtual worlds will bring, but I don’t think they are going away!  Too many advantages.  The librarians here in SL are amazing; I respect the work they are doing here are pioneering new trails for the future.”