virtual worlds for the humanities, arts, and social sciences

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