Academic Library Services in Virtual Worlds: An Examination of the Potential for Library Services in Immersive Environments.

Review of Literature In addition to creating a loud buzz among librarians at conferences and in staff meetings, topics related to virtual reality in higher education have exploded onto the current library literature landscape over the past several years. Research revolving around online social media such as blogs, wikis, and networking sites has gained a strong foothold in recent library literature; however, one specific issue within this category of literature grips the library world like no other: Second Life. Second Life remains an area of such fascination in the world of library and information science that it has gained its own LC (Library of Congress) subject heading and represents the central focus of most of the library literature published on virtual worlds and related technologies since 2006. Many publications discussing research into virtual worlds refer to a statistic from the Gartner Group suggesting that by the year 2011 more than 80 percent of "active Internet users" will be involved with some sort of virtual world community (L. Bell & Trueman, 2008; Dell, 2007; Gartner, 2007; Jarmon, Traphagan, Mayrath, & Trivedi, 2009; Jennings & Collins, 2007). Each time it appears in a publication, this statistic is used as support for various institutions' decisions to become involved in virtual worlds. Although the Gartner report does not functionally define "active Internet users," it does go on to clearly state that groups and people interested in working with virtual worlds "should experiment with virtual worlds, but not plan massive projects" in any single virtual world, as the entire platform is still in the process of stabilizing (Gartner, 2007). Across the disciplines most heavily invested in virtual worlds--business and education--generally, this recommendation has not been incorporated into the virtual world research and the literature that has come out of it. Across disciplines, researchers interested in the potential of virtual worlds tend to concentrate their investigations and explorations on Second Life. Notable exceptions to this focus on Second Life can be found in research conducted by Paul Messinger and his colleagues as they developed a comprehensive history of virtual worlds and the wide variety of virtual worlds in existence (Messinger, et al., 2009). Similarly, Sarah de Freitas and her co-researchers put together an evaluation methodology to examine learning experiences in more than 80 unique virtual worlds (de Freitas, et al., 2009). For the most part, though, other studies lightly touch on the existence of other virtual worlds as alternatives to Second Life (Boxen, 2008; EDUCAUSE, 2007; Erdman, 2007; Gilson, 2007; Salmon & Hawkridge, 2009; Sonnenwald, et al., 2009). Stephen Abram, in his Foreword to Virtual Worlds, Real Libraries, briefly talks about an employer that had previously "invested sponsorships and effort" into two other virtual worlds: Active Worlds and There.com, which has since closed its doors (2008, p. xi). Other exceptions to the Second Life-centric attitude in the literature appear in Virtual Worlds, Real Libraries, including the group at Appalachian State University that selected Active Worlds as the first virtual world to host distance learning instruction in 2004 and Marty Grover's comparisons of virtual worlds for child and teen projects (Grover, 2008; Purpur & Ochoa, 2008). A. J. Kelton, however, provides insight into the nature of the literature when he describes how Active Worlds, launched in 1997, has faded into obscurity because of the "mass cultural appeal of Second Life," which launched in 2003 (2008, p. 15). That most researchers have devoted their time and energies to exploring Second Life rather than comparing the benefits of various virtual worlds seems to be an effect of Second Life's "mass cultural appeal." An overview of cross-disciplinary literature on virtual worlds reveals a need to examine the potential of other virtual worlds. …