As I mentioned on my previous post, I have already visited Second Life twice to fulfill the requirements for the assignment on gaming and immersive environments for my LIBR 246 class spring 2009. In my first visit, I kind of got a feel of the place and explored several sites but did not really get to interact with any of the residents. Maybe because I visited in the late evening, Pacific Time, but it shouldn’t matter since this is supposed to be a multi-time zone virtual environment. In my second visit, I started out early afternoon and I was able to talk to a volunteer reference librarian for the Alliance Virtual Library and at the Reader’s Garden I got invited and attended an author’s discussion of his book, but I still noticed that most of the buildings were deserted. I am thinking that maybe because I am exploring academic and public libraries and it is spring break here in North America so that most of this sites would be unmanned. It can also mean staff challenges for those in first life, and since they know that visitors can click on links for available resources and if they have a question, leave an offline message or send an IM or email that it would not matter if the sites are unmanned. Whatever the reason is, I think it would have been a richer experience if I were able to interact with another librarian in one of these sites. Anyway, I might try a third visit if I have the time later this week.
My first visit was more of an exploratory mission, checking out different locations like Info Island, Cybrary City 1 and 2 and clicking on links and resources that they painstakingly created and maintained. I was most impressed with the Tech Museum of Innovation that looks like a museum inside and out. The Tech Museum had exhibits of the NASA rover, an exhibit on the art of the guitar, an auditorium, and many more. Sites that I find interesting is the Homeless Resource Center building, the Maryland Library, and the Topeka and Shawnee County Library buildings. Their structures look like real life buildings with paintings or pictures that are actually links to resources for visitors. I actually admire the Topeka and Shawnee County Library System as I have read or viewed their Facebook and Flickr page in previous assignments and it seems like they are really serious in integrating Web 2.0 tools in their effort to enrich and satisfy the information, entertainment, and educational needs of their patrons. I also got to visit the Australian Libraries building which was the topic of the Greenhill article I posted on the class wiki. I took a snapshot of the two penguins mentioned in the article.
However, it was on my second visit that I got to do something more productive and fulfills the requirement for this assignment. It started with my visit to the Second Life Resource Center and approaching the lady by the help desk. When you touch her she asks you to type it in the chat window, but I can’t seem to make contact. I thought I was doing something wrong or not sending the message correctly but I seem to recall from viewing a lot of videos from Jeremy Kemp’s machinima on Second Life to the several tutorials by Torley Tester that typing something on the local chat window actually reaches about 50 to 100 yards from you. So I was already getting frustrated from not getting any reaction or response from the library assistant lady, when someone responded to my constant “hello?” It was another resident just outside my peripheral view and she asked me if I needed help. I said that I was trying to talk to the librarian on duty and pointed to the lady manning the Resource Center. The resident told me that she does not talk, but she can take me to the reference desk of the Alliance Virtual Library so I can talk to a librarian. I accepted her offer and followed her outside and we went across to the next building. I said my thanks and talked to Ms. Quanhua the volunteer librarian at the reference desk. I told her at the start that this was for an assignment and if I can chat with her about her experiences as a librarian on Second Life. From our conversation it seems like she has been a volunteer librarian at the Alliance Virtual Library for one and a half years already manning the desk two hours a week. She attended volunteer orientations, staff meetings and a griefer class and some workshops to prepare for being a volunteer librarian but even before that she has been hanging out at the reference desk when she is on Second Life. By the way, griefer is Second Life speak for residents who harass other residents through name calling and such. She enjoys the social interaction on being at the reference desk and likes the fact that being in a digital world allows her to be whatever she can imagine. She told me that the average age of people on Second Life is 35 and that younger people tend to be on Facebook or MySpace. She said that in the one hour she spends manning the reference desk, she only gets an average of 1 to 2 residents asking for help. She was very nice and was even let me to take a snapshot of her and taught me how to save our chat history. I actually have a transcript of my chat history starting from my trying to coax the lady library assistant up to my saying goodbye to Ms. Quanhua, but I decided to post it or make it as an attachment since I read from the Second Life site that one must ask for the permission of everyone involved or in the conversation, and I did not expressly asked the librarian’s permission to post our chat conversation.
So after my talk with the librarian I went on exploring Second Life visiting some interesting exhibits in and around the Alliance Virtual Library. I then decided to visit Cybrary City 2 and ended up accidentally stepping into the Reader’s Garden and a resident invited me to take my seat as the book discussion is about to start. She assumed that I was there for the event. I did not disabuse her of her assumptions since I thought it would be cool to try out attending a book discussion virtually. So I took my seat in the Reader’s Garden and amidst the ambience of butterflies flitting here and there and the ambient sounds of twittering birds and running water the book discussion started. The guest speaker was Dr P W Singer, author of Wired for War, and he talked about the ethical and moral dilemmas of making intelligent robots and war machines to fight war, the topic of said book. Talk about serendipity! What are the odds of a sci-fi geek virtually represented as looking like the grim reaper roaming a virtual environment and landing by happenstance near a book discussion on intelligent robots? Anyway, he does make some excellent points in the discussion but I slipped out during the question and answer part. My next sets of visits were the Mythica Library and the Castle of Dreams. I like how they divided the floors and sections of the Mythica Library based on medieval legends, Greek mythology, and popular paranormal/pseudo-science stuff like Bigfoot, UFO’s and the like. They even have a picture of the poster that Fox Mulder had in his basement office in the X-Files, cool! The Castle of Dreams on the other hand has children’s books displayed like in a library and you only have to click on the book to start reading. My last stop was the Nebraska Library Commission and I looked at the old photographs displayed on their library. I even went up to the rooftop and clicked on the animate your avatar to make my avatar bust a move. 
After all this exploring I decided to go back to SJSU and take a sit on a bench to rest and sign off.
Tech Museum-of Innovation exhibits
Homeless Resource Center inside the main room
Homeless Resource Center
Australian Libraries building penguins