Librarians and Second Life: it's a source of information, a platform for networking, an opportunity to try out new approaches before you take them to the real world

Information Outlook, June, 2007 by Jill Hurst-Wahl

There is plenty of buzz about the online phenomenon Second Life.

Google it ("second life" virtual) and you'll get more than 7 million returns. Yahoo! produces nearly 6 million; Ask. com, 577,000. It has been covered in Time, Newsweek, Business Week, and Wired magazines (and written about in Information Outlook, April and May 2007, May 2006, and in the Info Tech column in this issue). It has been discussed on television news programs. There are books on how to use it and how to make money on it. It probably has been written about in your local newspaper.

Now it is time to look at some of the things librarians are doing there.

A Quick Recap

What is Second Life? If you can't answer the question, you're not alone. Created by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life is not a game but a three-dimensional, multi-user online digital world that is being created by its residents. Yes, residents. Currently, there are more than 6 million residents of Second Life (SL). As I write this, more than 28,000 people are online interacting with each other in this world that contains buildings, restaurants, clubs, parks, libraries, and more--all created by the people who are living there. You can even buy and sell things (with real money) as well as take classes and attend lectures.

When I describe second life to people, I always liken it to visiting a major metropolitan city. When you visit Paris, for example, you will want to visit museums, stores, cafes, clubs, libraries, and much more. So, too, in Second Life. There are malls, restaurants, dance clubs, casinos, libraries, exhibits, and private homes. There are places that you might visit only once and other places--like the building that contains the SL Health Information Outreach Lab--that you might visit again and again. As in real life, you can purchase goods (for use in Second Life or in real life), go dancing, read books, attend lectures, and build friendships.

Unlike real life (RL), you can travel by walking, flying, or teleporting from place to place. Also unlike real life, the world around you can be changed quickly. For example, new buildings or landmasses (islands) can appear and old ones can be drastically modified. The Art Gallery on Info Island is a great example of this. For some of the exhibits, it has solid outside walls. However, there are also some exhibits where the outside walls are removed to create a more open floor plan. In addition to changing how building and islands (landmasses) look, you can also change how your avatar (your Second Life persona) looks. Everything about your avatar can change (e.g., hair, clothes, body type, and gender).

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As people began to talk about SL, professional organizations took notice. Soon businesses were exploring SL. Colleges and universities began to explore how they could use SL for education, and not-for-profits looked at SL for awareness building and advocacy. Each organization saw something in Second Life that would allow it to work differently and could change its current paradigm. In the last year, the number of organizations on SL has grown dramatically and now includes Talis, Dell, IBM, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Nissan, NOAA, Ohio University, Wall Street Journal, SirsiDynix, CocaCola, Wells Fargo, Sun Microsystems, Adidas, Toyota, American Apparel, MTV, and Reuters.

Early in 2006, librarians took interest in SL and began to explore it. Quickly, some saw a place worth investing in, not because SL is seen as the definitive future, but because it was felt that this technology should be explored for its ability to create new ways of interacting with information users. In April 2006, the Alliance Library System of East Peoria, Illinois, began to invest time and resources in SL, providing formal and informal assistance to libraries and librarians who wanted to explore life there. Since its entry into SL, the Alliance Library System has gathered an expanding group of professionals who are willing to volunteer their time and energy to create Second Life libraries and library services.

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Librarians from around the world are exploring SL to discover what it holds for their future. Currently, 5,000 people a day visit what is known as the Alliance Information Archipelago.

The activities that I see librarians involved in are:

* Providing library services to SL residents. There are main libraries and community branch libraries. There are librarians staffing a reference desk with 40 hours per week of coverage. (They are using QuestionPoint from OCLC to help with those services.) SL librarians are interacting with users from around the world, including those who do not speak English.

* Networking. Librarians have found solutions to real-world problems through SL networks because they are not constrained by location or existing relationships. "A virtual gathering of librarians as we figure out how to proceed in the brave, new Web 2.0 world," commented an SL librarian. Another said, "Resource sharing, collaboration, exchanging ideas and expertise. Allowing us to develop a collective 'brain' [that] we can tap into when needed."