Virtual Worlds for the
Humanities Arts
and
Social Sciences
Richard Urban (aka Aethalides Kukulcan)Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
http://isrl.uiuc.edu/~rjurban
Growth of Virtual Worlds: From…
To…
International Space Flight Museum
Subscriptions to MMOG
Courtesy mmogdata.com
Second Life Demographics
http://secondliferesearch.blogspot.com
Residents Logged-In:
Last 7 Days: 458,592Last 14 Days: 637,010Last 30 Days: 1,031,293Last 60 Days :1,682,527
Total Residents: 8,350,979http://www.secondlife.com
So what is it?
• 3D Multi-user Virtual Environment (MUVE)– Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE)
• Proprietary– Based on open standards (OpenGL)
– Open-source Client• AJAX Life - Browser Based AJAX client
https://ajaxlife.katharineberry.co.uk/client/login.kat
– Open-source server?
So what is it?
• Convergence Culture (Jenkins)– Web 2.0– Social Computing– Participatory & user generated– Video– Audio – Immersive interfaces
Museums in Second Life
• Through early 2007 most museums are created, built, and maintained by SL Residents
• This is changing quickly– ‘Sploland (Exploratorium)
– Science Center (UK)
– Newseum
– NASA CoLab
– Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
– Design Museum London
– Holocaust Museum
Image courtesy Taran Rampersad
Science
International Space Flight Museum
International Space Flight Museum
NASA CoLab
‘Splo (Now Open! Sploland)
Art
Second Louvre Museum
Bolinas Art Museum
Fantasy
Sci-Fi Museum
History/Archeology
Second Life Historical Museum
Xibalba: Maya Museum
Jewish Historical Center
Virtual Morocco
Literature
St. Michael - Jules Verne Museum
Globe Theater
CHASS and Second Life
Stanford Humanities LabLife to the Second Power
New Media Consortium Aho Museum
NMC - Dante’s Inferno
UCB - Okapi Island
Vasser - Sistine Chapel
SDSU - Virtual Pow Wow
EduServ (UK) - Artsplace
EduServ (UK) - SLashup
EduServ (UK) - Opac
Sculpty Builder
Second Life as Serious Leisure
• Casual Leisure– Immediate– No obligations
• Project-Based Leisure– Occasional, infrequent– Short-term obligations
Second Life as Serious Leisure
• Serious Leisure– Frequent– Requires acquisition/development of specialized
knowledge/skills– Need to persevere– Receive durable benefits– Development of a unique ethos - a social world– Participants create identity through serious leisure– Long-term obligations– Development of a leisure career
Serious Leisure and Lifelong Learning
• Liberal Arts Leisure (Stebbins)
• Genealogy• Railfans• History buffs• Collectors• Museum volunteers• Re-enactors• Living History• Arts/Crafts
• Many of these serious leisure communities turned to the Internet to build social networks - through bulletin boards, websites, and now Second Life
Amateurs Professionals
MuseumsMuseums
Citizen Science
CI Framework
1. Accessible as a public good2. It will be sustainable3. It will provide interoperability4. It will facilitate collaboration5. It will support experimentation
CI Framework
1. Develop public and institutional policies that foster openness and access.
2. Promote cooperation between the public and private sectors.
3. Develop and maintain open standards and robust tools.
4. Create extensive and reusable digital collections.
Citizen Humanities?
• How does Second Life measure up to CI Framework? What about alternatives?
• How do we engage residents of virtual worlds in the co-creation of humanities content?
• Can this be an opportunity for education/learning about humanities methods and their purpose (e.g. The London Charter?)
Showtime!
• Let’s watch some videos while we discuss…
• http://youtube.com/musebrarian
• If you have a Second Life account you can find the museums in this presentation through my Gridmarks
• http://www.gridmarker.com/gridmarks/aethalides