Second Life

Our project used ideas for technical improvements in the way content is retrieved, stored and presented to explore (and improve) how libraries are being translated into Second Life. The technical innovations of our project improve the experience of virtual books as well, allowing for dynamic information exchanges between an outside server and the interface in SL. (The content improvements we have created could apply not only to libraries, but also to bookstores (i.e. Amazon as a store) and, further, to the multiple uses of structured data combinations we see in Web 2.0 applications now.) To test out our ideas and get feedback from SL users, we have built a library building in Second Life as a place to explore the interface and experience of our improved content.

Images:

ALICE HUD Interface

The book HUD is attached to the center of an avatar’s screen. The main page of the HUD, pictured above, greets the user with a list of most popular books, as well as any bookmarks that the user has recorded. As the user clicks either a book or bookmark, they can either see more information about a specific book, or go ahead and read the book in question. Below, we’ve uploaded a video presentation that highlights all of our accomplishments.

Video of presentation ( video lasts 11 minutes ):

ALICE Library Project – 2006 from Nicolas Dedual on Vimeo.

Papers published

West Bowers, Alex Campbell, Nicolas Dedual, Ghais Issa, Gary Ritzenhaler, “ALICE Library Project: Improving the library experience in Second Life”, to be published at the Second Life Education Community Conference 2008.