Librarians in Second Life

I just finished reading Marilyn Johnson’s new book This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. It’s a great read, and if you are interested in the future of libraries and librarians I would recommend it to you. In the book, Johnson discusses librarians who are on the Second Life website, answering reference questions and representing their respective libraries in that virtual world. While reading this, one word arose in my mind:

Why?

Before I explain myself, I understand that many of my fellow librarians are actively “doing librarianship” on Second Life, and I feel sure they have a different, and equally valid opinion about this. (If you are familiar with Second Life, let me hear from you in the comments!)

That being said, I do not understand why there is such a push for librarians to practice our craft on Second Life. Three things come to mind when I questions this:

First, Second Life is only a duplication of services widely available through library websites. Electronic reference services are available through many library websites, as are the catalog of items in the library’s collection (OPAC, if you want the acronym). In addition, many libraries offer their digitized assets in a much more pleasant virtual environment than Second Life offers. Of course, this idea of library websites could really be a post unto itself - meaning a list of things that all library websites should have, and how many of them are not really that great.

Second, the user interface of a website is far more user friendly than the interface in Second Life - meaning people in general know how to navigate a website as this is a commonly used form for the presentation of “virtual objects.” The Second Life experience requires the user to install the program, sign up for the service, learn navigation, and also assumes a high speed internet connection. For people already on Second Life, these things are not a problem - but for the people not on Second Life (the majority of internet users) these hurdles prevent them from using the library services on Second Life.

Third, why is so much focus and effort spent on such a small user group? I know Second Life was pretty popular at one point (and I’ll talk about that in my fourth and final point) but the numbers just don’t seem to justify all the money and effort spent by libraries on their presences in Second Life.

Finally, one rarely hears about Second Life after the initial media blitz of a few years ago, and so I suppose my question is, what does the user base look like now? What do the users do? How long do people spend on there? There really needs to be some studies done about usage on Second Life.

Still, though, I ask “why?”