Libraries Get Second Life
October 17, 2006 at 12:06 pm Guest Post 1 comment
Second Life, an online virtual world created by Linden Labs in California, has gotten the attention of librarians from all types of libraries. The Second Life Library 2.0 Grand Opening this past weekend was a rousing success, despite a few technical glitches on the “main grid” or 3-D world, which appeared to be system-wide.
The Info Island Second Life Library 2.0 has a central blog at http://infoisland.org, where you can also check archives for development of the world and discussion of all of the library events held there, including book talks, instruction, reference, and more. Lori Bell and the Alliance Library System in Illinois are spearheading this venture. Her folks submitted their Second Life Library Project to Talis’ Mashing Up the Library competition and won 2nd place!! Serious Games has discussed library services in SL as well.
Other Second Life Library “branches” are cropping up, including a 19th Century Library, Caledon, and a medical library. Great photos of these places and more appear in the library’s Flickr photo pool. A teen “grid” is in the works at http://teen.secondlife.com/ for those under age 18. Metaverse Messenger, the “newspaper” of Second Life, is a real newsprint publication (for ironic purposes, perhaps, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes!) which is also available online (teen and adult versions).
Check out Wikipedia’s background and technical info, and more importantly the critical analysis of SL issues and services links at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life Better yet, teleport there now!
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Marie L. Radford | October 17, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Thanks Michelle for this post. I am very interested in the virtual reference service being offered inside the library featuring Question Point software. Has anyone used it or heard anything about it yet?