As someone who has for the past year actively explored and written about
how Second Life can impact museums, I'm really interested by this
discussion. A few points of note...
1) As Jennifer Rae Atkins pointed out, SL is not linking to
database information. It's increasingly likely that in another ten years
or so, we may be looking at completely 3-D websites which will use (or
entirely replace) our websites and online collections to deliver
content. I've been following a couple of applications which are
currently in development which do this, where an avatar interacts with
web applications - videos, teleconferencing, graphs, web pages, etc.
2) "It's my belief that, if you move your presence to the fantasy
world, you will doom the reality of your museum." I believe this was the
concern when museum websites and online collections were first being
experimented with. And the thing is, there's no evidence to support the
belief that a digital surrogate ever replaces the real thing. In fact,
it appears that delivering digital surrogates acts as advertising for
the brick-and-mortar museum, with people wishing to visit the museum to
see the real piece (Mona Lisa, anyone?).
3) SL is a method of delivering content, which is what we do as
museums. Depending on the scale of the presence, this can be very, very
inexpensive or free on up to a couple hundred dollars a month.
$200/month is not really that much (compared with some other types of
audience development programs or exhibitions), if you're interested in
reaching new audiences in unique ways. Of course, this doesn't take into
account staff time, which is another matter. The Exploratorium's Splo is
a project by one of their researchers who devotes 20% of his time to
building new exhibits. I am fitting in some time to work on a new
virtual presence for the Magnes, but it's also partly a pet project of
mine.
4) SL allows for some risk-taking and building content which we
would not be able to physically do or afford.
5) The metaverse (3-D, immersive environments) is not going to go
away, like it or not. As someone mentioned, we've got a huge population
of kids who "eat video games for breakfast". Are these kids going to be
flitting around in SL? Maybe, probably not (not enough guns and gore in
SL!). Still, if museums are able to experiment and build interesting and
engaging content in this current popular application, they may well be
more comfortable building 3D websites when the metaverse and the web
merge.
6) Accessibility is a problem in SL, though it's also a problem on
many current websites (particularly those dreadful Flash-bloated
things...). I really hope that with future developments of the meta-web
(if I can call it that), accessibility will be taken more into account.
That being said, there are some persons funding SL museums because they
physically cannot visit the brick-and-mortar museum. So inversely,
having a virtual presence can help.
7) Many non-profit groups are using SL to present real-time
lectures, classes, and discussions. I'm terrifically excited about this
because there's no way that I can fly to Wisconsin or London for a
workshop, but if the workshop is being held in SL, I can go. Hooray for
professional development opportunities!
8) Second Life is not for everyone. It's confusing at first (I
personally set it down for a month after first signing up because I
couldn't figure out how to get off of Info Island. argharghargh). It's
not perfect. There are people who could care less about what you're
doing or disrupt the area. It takes time to develop content thoughtfully
and to think outside of the (brick-and-mortar) box.
Do all museums need to have a virtual presence? Of course not! But the
metaverse is a reality I think all museums should become accustomed to.
At this point, the jury is indeed still out on their effectiveness, and
I don't think that museums without virtual presences are going to become
"irrelevant" anytime soon (unlike those without websites. Sorry, but a
museum without a website is pretty much considered invisible to the
public in this day and age). Just chalk SL down as another tool to
cheaply and easily create content and reach new audiences. If you want
to put effort into building physical content, by all means, go for it,
but don't discount virtual museums as pointless just yet.
Perian Sully
Collection Information and New Media Coordinator
Judah L. Magnes Museum
2911 Russell St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
Work: 510-549-6950 x 357
Fax: 510-849-3673
http://www.magnes.org
http://www.musematic.org
http://www.mediaandtechnology.org
=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:
The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
|
