Thing 15 - Online Games & Libraries

There was a period in my life when I loved playing SimCity (and this was way back in the days of floppy-disk installation). I thought it was the coolest idea ever hatched and was endlessly fascinated by the complex interplay of roads, industry, homes, stores, etc. City as living, breathing, dying and reviving thing. It blew my mind.

So you'd think that I'd be all over Second Life. But, my love affair with SimCity happened way before I got a real job, a mortgage, a partner...

Okay, maybe "growing up" isn't the only thing responsible for this change in my interests. But again I realize that I very much tend to look at and treat my computer (and, by extension, the Internet) as a tool. It's something I use to help me in my work. Whether I'm doing library (ie. paying) work, volunteer work, organizing my home life (housework, essentially), or writing a novel, the keyboard, screen and all accompanying widgets are part of one spiderifically productive tool. Games are sporadic and short lived (think solitaire or 10 minutes on You-Tube). Entertainment, for me, is what happens after I turn off the computer.

However, Second Life is full of interesting possibilities, and I am so pleased that someone else has the interest and creativity to explore this frontier. I watched the Eye4You Alliance video blog. I love the idea of a teen art gallery, and buildings designed with strong input from teens. Also, of course teens would come up with a cookie making machine in the robotics lab! And the idea of bringing favorite books to life... whether the author or readers are the instigators... that's just cool. Makes me want to see what the Browncoats and Discworlders have come up with.

So, yes, cool. Thanks for introducing me.

What I hope is that libraries will be generous about sharing their Second Life ventures. Would it be possible to have a link from the GRRL teen page to Eye4You Alliance? Creating SL islands and filling them seems like an awful lot of work for individual libraries to take on, yet at the same time, it's not quite fair to expect the innovators to share everything they accomplish. I think this presents the greater library world with some real challenges about how we support, assist, encourage and compensate each other.