This spring Davis Schneiderman hopes to have his Postmodernism class meet for selected sessions in Second Life. Second Life (also known as SL) is a virtual online world populated by digital avatars of real people who walk, talk, and fly around surprisingly realistic structures having three dimensional qualities. Entrance is gained to this universe by downloading free software and registering an identity. Schneiderman intends for the students to meet at a specified location in SL and then explore their surroundings and discuss issues of identity, such as what it means to represent yourself virtually, and what are some of the social implications of a virtual world. Books are now being published online, and Davis sees this as the next medium shift in narrative, with the last one being the advent of the printed book in the 1450s. What will future novels look like? One wonders whether the library catalog will someday link to stories performed in Second Life.
a snapshot Clariss Thiessen's SL avatar on the porch of a virtual condo she rented over the summer
Clarissa Thiessen ('10) did research in Second Life this summer for Schneiderman as a Richter Scholar. Her research focused on discovering what other schools and professors were doing in SL, as well as the business model employed in SL by Linden Labs, creators of this virtual environment. On the Education page of the SL website she learned that Professor Schneiderman could use an acre of SL land in Campus: Second Life for free for one class for one semester, but would have to buy an island for subsequent classes. (Selling virtual property is how SL obtains financing, along with grants.)
Thiessen also researched individuals in Second Life who are planning activities to celebrate the Centennial of the Burnham Plan, the layout design for the City of Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire. Schneiderman hopes to write a grant to buy an island on which to use virtual architecture to recreate the Burnham "Plan of Chicago" from 1909. He anticipates that the virtual city would interest the people of Lake Forest in the possibilities of Second Life.
Thiessen found SL to be an easy place to meet and chat with people who all seemed excited to be there.
Currently, two scholarly studies of Second Life appear in the PsycInfo database, and one appears in Sociological Abstracts. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2006 that Harvard offered a law class in Second Life. A simple Internet search finds a tremendous amount of documentation of the presence of academia in Second Life.
The avatar of reference librarian Nancy Sosna Bohm hovers in Second Life over the steps of her alma mater, the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science.
The reference librarians at Lake Forest College have discussed having a library presence in SL, as many libraries now do. However, reference librarian Nancy Sosna Bohm and Clarisa Theisen both found SL to be a heavy user of computer resources. The librarians are eager to see the outcomes of a class on our campus using this technology.