Well, I read chapter one of "Coming of Age". Here are my thoughts:
1) It was difficult to read. The guy who wrote it was obviously really smart and I had to go over many of his sentences multiple times. He used a lot of big words and figuring out what his different definitions meant took me a long time. I'm sure I've forgotten most of them already and would have to re-read them another 4 times to understand them again. It was also difficult to read because even when I made the pages the maximum size the font was still really small. However, I found a workaround: leaning in really close to my monitor and squinting. I actually got used to it pretty quickly and then reading it wasn't too terrible. If I looked away for a second though it became hard to read again.
2) The main thing I took away from this reading was that I don't know anything about anthropology and that it's a lot more complicated than I would have thought. Har har, just kidding. I know EVERYTHING about anthropology. Anyhoo, from this reading I learned that there are a lot of issues and angles involved in Second Life. It seems like an enormous topic. It shouldn't be too difficult to find something to suggest a research topic for.
3) I actually learned a lot about how to do things in Second Life. I didn't know about using Ctrl-F to find whatever you're looking for in the world and teleport to it. I didn't know about using Ctrl-M to look at the map and find people and places to go to. It was actually really helpful. This speaks more to my ignorance than it does to the usefulness of the chapter, but I digress.
4) I liked how he talked about how SL was analogous to actual life in that both places have real societies and relationships; the difference is that in SL people can create different personas and occupations for themselves and impact society and their relationships differently than they do in the actual world. SL is affected by the same human society as actual life, but the society can be different because people choose to be different online than in actual life. I think that was the gist of what he was saying. I may be wrong. Feel free to correct me! I don't want to be wrong.
Sorry you had such a difficult reading the text --it was also linked as a text from the press in WebCT -- nonetheless your comments are interesting. The gist is that making a distinction between real and virtual is problematic, since being virtual is as humanly cultural as being carbon-based -- they bleed into each other. The "almost" character of the virtual reality is important as well. How this applies in LIS is at least two-fold: 1) This kind of information --the virtual kind-- is a shared as any kind (although not gathered through all the senses or the laws of physics); and 2) A Virtual World, being as cultural as any world, being user-generated, has as many information needs for the kinds of services librarians specialize in. So you did get the gist of Boellstorff
ReplyDeleteAm hoping to hear more from you Now that I know you are interested in LWB (Librarians Without Borders you blog can continue with reflections on volunteering and such
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anxiously awaiting more
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