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This article discusses how a library's consistent policy of accessibility and foresight positioned itself to serve its students, faculty and staff in the virtual world of Second Life. Always ahead of the technological curve, this library has been the front-runner in providing services to distance learners via text messaging, "chat," e-mail, and telephone services and via its laptop librarian project across the campus. It now is poised and ready to provide service in Second Life. Collaboration between the library and teaching faculty culminated in the creation, development, and furnishing of a library in Second Life, an environment that gives new meaning to "off-campus" learning. Without marketing, but as a visible presence, the Second Life library was able to attract both off-campus guests and affiliated students and faculty and even participated in campus-wide projects. This experiment has enjoyed the support of both the university and library administration.

Pedagogical approaches in colleges and universities are in a constant state of flux and conscientious instructors are constantly seeking novel strategies for reaching and engaging their students meaningfully to promote deep learning. It is in this context that the instructors at Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) reached for technology to work more effectively with students to improve student learning. They faced challenges not unlike those encountered by their peers in other similar higher educational institutions. One of the most persistent of such challenges in a large number of institutions is that of reaching and engaging students in active learning so that they learn by doing or being actively involved in learning experiences. The challenges of SUNO instructors were enhanced by the advent of Hurricane Katrina and subsequent storms, which displaced students scattering them away from campus to proximate and distant locations throughout the nation. This paper is a case study that will discuss how SUNO instructors implemented the use of social media for the delivery of instruction to reach and engage these students in a more meaningful manner.

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This study investigated the use of the knowledge base of QuestionPoint as a knowledge management tool capable of improving reference services in academic libraries. The research addressed the problem that reference librarians continually provide ineffective service to patrons. Because of the expansive exposure to resources, it is often difficult for any individual librarian to accurately recall the best resource or answer for any specific question. While individual librarians may not recall specific information, when they collaborate with their colleagues and share their collective knowledge there is usually an improvement in the quality of service they provide. It would benefit librarians therefore, if they used a knowledge management tool that could capture and store their communal knowledge for future use. This study explored the librarians' perceptions of the benefits and problems of using the Knowledge Base of QuestionPoint and its impact of on reducing response time and duplication. The study revealed that the reference librarians did not generally use the Knowledge Base, and that there was duplication of effort and no reduction in response time.