Virtual Worlds Interest Group

"Sheila will start by discussing ageism and the way it can manifest itself, including in the current pandemic. She will go on to talk about ageism and libraries from three perspectives. Firstly, she will identify how ageism is experienced in the library workforce and some ways it can be combatted. Secondly, she will consider how librarians may fall into ageist practices when providing library and information services, and strategies for avoiding ageism in marketing and delivering services. Thirdly, she will consider how this applies to library and information services in virtual worlds."

Sheila Webber (Sheila Yoshikawa in Second Life) is a faculty member of the Information School, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. She leads their MA Library and Information Services Management programme and is Head of their Libraries and Information Society Research Group. Her core interests are information literacy and information behaviour and she has maintained the Information Literacy Weblog since 2005. She is an Honorary Fellow of the UK's Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), and recipient of CILIP's Jason Farradane Award for services to information science education and of the University of Sheffield's Senate Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching. She has been active on committees for CILIP, the Institute of Information Scientists, the International Federation of library Associations & Institutions and UNESCO's Global Alliance for Partnerships in Media and Information Literacy. She has been active in Second Life since 2007, including hosting information literacy and learning events on Infolit iSchool island, and is currently lead organiser for the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable.