Second Life

I've had a Second Life avatar (Marian Enoch) since April, but until I attended the recent workshop that Meg Kribble offered, I didn't know about flight feathers or the advantages of avatar underwear! Meg gave a great overview of Second Life's Information Island, and explained a few other mysteries, such as how to change the time of day so that you can get better light for your activities. Above is a snapshot of my avatar, along with several other workshop attendees.

On previous forays into SL, I've met up with several librarians, with whom I've had rather disjointed conversations (I've been using text only, not voice communication). I even encountered a faculty member from a Canadian university, who was doing research on performance art in Second Life! I told him that I thought it was interesting that my avatar has special "female gestures", and he said he wasn't aware of that. I guess that means that male avatars don't have these? Would someone with a male avatar please answer this question?

I remember that, when I first found out about SL, I thought, "I don't have time for this life; how could I have a second one?" I do still have that in the back of my mind, although I find it very interesting to explore this virtual world, and see what other people are doing. I think that one of the ideas behind having library services in SL is to go where our users are. Time will tell whether they want us to be there!