This week’s activities on our LIBR 246 class spring 2009 are on gaming and immersive environment. Gaming involves electronic games which can be played online or through the use of game consoles. Immersive environments are multi-user virtual environments (MUVE) wherein users interact with each other using an avatar, or their virtual representation. Interaction and activities in a virtual environment mirrors most of what happens in real life. Most of the activities involving this week’s assignment revolve around interacting in the virtual 3D world called Second Life. We are to create an account and by extension an avatar on Second Life and visit the Alliance Second Life Library and interact with the volunteer librarian manning the desk. Additionally, we are to visit three other libraries in Second Life and take snapshots of them. Snapshots are literally photographs of that world that your avatar takes from a first person perspective. Aside from the Second Life library visits we are to discuss in a blog post our perspectives on gaming in the library supported, as always with references from the readings and video resources assigned by Prof Debbie Faires.
I already created an account and an avatar on Second Life late last year so I did not have to go through that again to go through the activities for the LIBR 246 class. I did, however, change my avatar’s appearance from a bald human male with pointed ears to a black-cloaked avatar, pretty cool huh? According to the Second Life site FAQ, the Second Life world is a virtual 3D environment imagined and created by its residents who interact, learn, play, build, and perform any other activity they do in First Life, or the real world in Second Life terminology. You can even buy and sell stuff and own land using Linden dollars, which you can purchase using real American dollars from Linden Labs through your account. Second Life is hosted and, in a sense, owned by Linden Labs. And they provide extensive support to the users of Second Life with blogs, wikis, and tutorials on their site and also resources within Second Life.
The basic membership on Second Life is free and gets you a chance to enter Second Life and create one avatar. You can add an alternate avatar by paying $9.95 and upgrade your membership to a premium account which gives your avatar a chance to own land for a monthly subscription. But you do not really need to go for a premium account or start purchasing Linden dollars to enjoy and explore Second Life. Note that a lot of free stuff like avatars, houses, furnishings, clothing, and accessories are offered by other users on Second Life and part of the fun in exploring this virtual environment is looking for these freebies.
On my first visit to fulfill the requirements for this assignment I explored the Second Life Resource Center, the Australian Libraries building, the Tech Museum of Innovation, the Maryland Library building, the Topeka and Shawnee County Library building, the Mark and Emily Turner Memorial Library, Penn Libraries, and the UCLA Coffeeshop.
On my second visit, I explored and even interacted with some of the residents of Second Life. The sites I visited are the Alliance Virtual Library, Nebraska Libraries, the Association of Rural and Small Libraries, Mythica Library, Castle of Dreams and others.
I interacted with a volunteer reference librarian manning the reference desk at the Alliance Virtual Library and attended an author discussion at the Reader’s Garden. I would relate those experiences in my next several posts. In the meanwhile enjoy my Flickr photostream of the sites I explored on Second Life. I used Yahoo pipes to embed the photostream and there are excellent tutorials and examples on Yahoo pipes to follow if you want to do the same.