Sometime it takes a while for people to be recognized.  BuddhistLibrarian ‘Bud’ Ballyhoo (real life: Wendy Dover) was Volunteer of the Month in March 2010, but at that point RezLibris had just become a quarterly.  We are delighted to recognize her here, in the first of the quarterly issues.

Ballyhoo became involved in Second Life several years ago, while she was still in library school and attending a Florida Library Association conference.  The keynote speaker was Stephen Abram, speaking about this ‘new thing’, Second Life.  Ballyhoo came home and wanted to try to enroll, but her PC wasn’t adequate to the task.  So that Christmas, her husband bought her a new PC, and she’s been here ever since.

After she finished her orientation, she typed ‘Take me to the librarians’ in the search box, and she landed at the reference desk.  Haldin Koba was on duty, and he said “Damn, that’s a name!  Here’s a dress and a coupon for hair.”  Ballyhoo was hooked.  It was a few months before she dared to venture beyond the islands and explore.

In real life, Ballyhoo is at the Gulf Coast Community College library, where she teaches Internet research to students (although an occasional faculty member has been known to sneak into the class).  She loves the teaching, although occasionally finds it frustrating when students believe that they can skip the class because they ‘know’ how to surf the Internet.

In SL, her top priorities have become her friends.  She has made some of her best friends here, and enjoys being with them.  Also, she very much enjoys handling the marketing of events in the CVL.

For leisure, in SL Ballyhoo loves to dance (“I can’t dance in RL so dancing here is the best”).  In real life, she loves to window-shop – and sometimes buy – antiques; she scrapbooks and does basket-weaving.  She is also learning to quilt.  There are no children in her life, but rather a cat that rules the roost, and a husband who’s awesome.

Among her favorite experiences in SL are meeting Marilyn Johnson, and also Abbey Zenith.  People in SL have been – and are – very important to her.  She offers this advice to librarians: “If you are not already in SL, you need to be.  If you ARE in SL, you need to come and introduce yourself at JazzCat one Monday to see what we have and what wonderful people are here.”