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