The slave quarters behind Mary’s Grove Plantation constituted a history course on their own. Think of Colonial Williamsburg, set during the Civil War and shrunk to your laptop. The cluster of simple log buildings were designed and furnished according to the accounts of real slaves. Outside one dwelling stood images of six upright books, each linked to the full e-book text, as well as critical commentary—including The Narrative of Sojourner Truth and W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (“being a problem is a strange experience—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else”). Interviews with actual slaves could be read directly from a larger open book resting on a pedestal; its pages turned with a mouse click. Notes and links to sites about Abolition and Emancipation were cleverly woven into the scene; a Web source about the Underground Railroad popped up when you clicked a patchwork quilt stretched between cabins. The slave cabins, created by librarians with the Second Life names of Daisyblue Hefferman and Pipsqueak Fiddlesticks, represented one small plot in a historic simulation that was compiled in people’s free time in a speedy few months.
I know, I know…These hardworking librarians put together this serious, interactive, imaginative 3-D exhibit, but their names were Daisyblue Hefferman and Pipsqueak Fiddlesticks. It presented a problem. I attended a lecture in Second Life by Daisyblue and noticed that the whiteboard on which she flashed pictures of Land of Lincoln had been designed by AngryBeth Shortbread. The names were the essence of Second Life humor, a fusion of whimsy and attitude. Zen-Mondo Wormser! Perplexity Peccable! One avatar admired mine, Marilena Basevi; she thought it made a great name for a spy—which, in a way, I was. For a while, library conferences that offered presentations on virtual and avatar librarianship featured both the real world and Second Life names of the presenters, as when Barbara Galik/Puglet Dancer spoke at the Computers in Libraries conference in 2008. The silliness of the names was a barrier, though, and guaranteed that anybody coming to listen would walk in with a smirk. At any rate, I noticed that at later conferences, presenters on virtual-world issues were identified only by their tamer real names.
The grand opening on the long Presidents’ Day weekend in 2008 featured a formal ball with appearances by a virtual Mrs. Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln, who waltzed with Marilena, apologized for his dancing skills, and told her, “I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice.” (He didn’t step on Marilena’s feet, of course; his avatar, just like mine, had been scripted and animated to dance exquisitely.) He regretted that we could share only one waltz; “many women and just one president,” he murmured. I was charmed.
Lori Bell, who worked for the Alliance Library System in Illinois and was one of the propelling forces behind its pioneering stake in Second Life, felt a responsibility to bring to fruition anything her librarian-volunteers dreamed up. Her avatar, Lorelei Junot, was a fairy godmother, giving away plots of virtual land to any real-world librarian who promised to build a virtual library. Bell had learned about Second Life in early 2006 and leapt immediately. Her title in the Illinois consortium was director of innovation, and obviously, here was something innovative: every time she visited, she saw Second Life being created. It was immediately obvious to her that she and her colleagues could bring something to this interactive world, participate in its invention, and develop a whole new arena to promote the image of librarians.
So Bell bought an island in the Alliance’s name, set up a virtual reference desk, and began the first collaborative library project in Second Life. She got her friend Barbara Galik, an academic librarian at Bradley University and president of the Alliance’s board of directors, to sign up as well. Galik developed her avatar, the knockout Puglet Dancer, then bought two of her staff members new computers to entice them onto Second Life.
Rhonda Trueman, an academic librarian at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina, got into Second Life with her husband and daughter after reading a story in BusinessWeek, also in early 2006. As soon as she discovered Bell’s reference desk, she knew she had to get involved. She fashioned a sweet-looking librarian-avatar named Abbey Zenith and threw herself into volunteering, bringing such energy and imagination to her tasks that the Alliance hired her part-time; that is, a consortium in Illinois paid U.S. dollars to the librarian Rhonda Trueman for the work she did as a librarian-avatar. Two years later, Trueman and Lori Bell collaborated to edit the book Virtual Worlds, Real Libraries, and with Galik and a host of others have expanded library services in Second Life; the count in mid-2009 was 128 virtual libraries in this system, from Bradley University’s replica of its campus library to IBM’s corporate library.
Junot, Bell, Trueman, Galik, Hypatia Dejavu—none of them predicted the explosive growth of the library scene here. “This started as a small pilot project and grew faster and wilder than we could keep up with,” Bell explained. “My ambition is to keep my head above water.”
Each success made them bolder. The Alliance in Second Life offered noncredit courses in virtual librarianship through the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and conducted educational and literary conferences in Second Life. It also started a group within the American Library Association to explore ways to formalize the field of virtual librarianship. New librarians entering Second Life and getting drunk on the creative possibilities were warned of the biggest pitfalls, like the resistance of their actual library colleagues and directors. “We have had librarians nearly lose their job over participating,” said Trueman. Almost as lethal to new volunteers was the unintended consequence of all that creative stimulation: it was just so exciting to be a librarian with an avatar and an imagination, you couldn’t stop building libraries and curating exhibits. You burned out.
For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Marilena materialized under a gazebo in the square in Caledon’s Victoria City. Where exactly was she? Coordinates 127, 128, 24 on the Second Life grid, near a sign that said: “Welcome to 19th Century Steampunk Victorian Caledon.” The square was surrounded by gas lamps and what looked like stately bank buildings of a certain era. Inside each storefront: antiques for sale, dresses with bustles, rimless eyeglasses, spats—or rather, virtual representations of such items. A few carts parked on the square displayed gift boxes with things free or almost free: top hats, archaeology tools from the Royal Society, and steampunk goggles for avatars: images of the detritus of a previous century, polished and repurposed for the avatars of the twenty-first century.
A half-cat, half-human avatar emerged from the mist by the locomotive tracks to ask if the traveler needed assistance.
Well, yes. The traveler certainly did. Marilena was in a place that felt familiar but was in fact twenty thousand leagues deep into the weird: the past, complete with its vision of the future, as imagined in the present, and populated by cartoons.
We were searching for the Caledon library and its chief librarian, Mr. J. J. Drinkwater. Ah, said the half-furry thing, Drinkwater was an elusive and shy personage. Maintained a colony for homeless librarians. A credit to Caledon. (Did everyone in Caledon talk like this? Yes, and so did I when Marilena was on the scene—the urge to speak somewhat pompously in the “sim” was contagious.) The guide pointed a paw to an alley with the library tucked behind, and urged Marilena to pick up a free bustle dress to wear while wandering around, just to get in the spirit of things. So I scored a long dove-gray gown with layers of folds and frills for Marilena, and a fetching felt hat, and, transformed, commenced snooping.
The whimsical country of Caledon epitomized the more civilized side of Second Life. It was a world both fussy and playful, and it occupied a significant cultural corner of virtual reality; estimates of its citizenry run
upwards of eight hundred (out of roughly thirty thousand to sixty thousand citizens logged on to the whole of Second Life anytime I jumped in, most of them, according to the rankings of popular sites, seeking warplay or sex). The library anchored and helped define the Caledon community, collecting bibliographic material about the nineteenth century, steampunk (the future as imagined by Victorians like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne), and imagined history. It also hosted “exhibits, book talks, lectures, and the occasional donnybrook.” J.J. had twice been challenged to haiku duels and turned them into fund-raising events (he won both). The notecard that described the library elucidated: “This site draws its name from the Chivalric Order of the Duchy of Caledon Primverness, and Members of the Order take vows of Literacy, Obstinacy, and Bibliomancy.” Bibliomancy? It’s defined for us a little further down: “Divination by jolly well Looking It Up.”
At any rate, there was no one there to look anything up. J. J. Drinkwater was offline, said a little sign in front. Through a comfy reading room (if you clicked on one of the balls, nestled like a pillow in the chairs, your avatar would sit down and seem to be reading a book), a replica of a circulation desk stood with an odd device on top, a brass contraption with a piece of paper in its jaws, and a domed top with some melted-looking alphabet keys. “Touch here to leave a message,” it said. Marilena touched it, and the odd machine flashed a prompt on my screen: “Leave a one-line message after the beep…BEEP!” I left a message for J.J.
So much for the clever gadgets of Caledon: The message never reached him. Or perhaps the shy librarian was hiding. I resolved to track him down at one of the events that occurred continually throughout Caledon, many sponsored by his very own self. And soon enough I did.
The Alice in Wonderland Tea was preceded by three days of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass read aloud over Radio Riel, the Internet radio station that could be streamed in or out of Second Life. I listened to the reading while browsing a virtual nineteenth-century store for the right floaty gown, period boots, and long gloves, then made Marilena up like a grand titled lady while listening to the part where Alice introduces the Cheshire Cat (“‘I don’t like the look of it at all,’ said the King: ‘however, it may kiss my hand, if it likes’”).
Arriving at the green in Caledon, I felt I had stumbled on a country wedding in an Austen novel. Folks in period costumes converged from every direction, greeting each other and being welcomed in courtly fashion by the librarian. Some avatars appeared as Alice, the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts, or the Dormouse—and not simply costumed as these characters, either; they were these creatures. Alice looked like a blond girl in a pinafore; the Dormouse was a miniature furry, as the animal avatars are called on Second Life. J. J. Drinkwater sported a stunning suit and duster with a lofty top hat crowning his mild, friendly face and round, rimless glasses perched on his nose. He led us ceremoniously to a green space behind the clock tower where a long table was set with cakes and teapots, and there he conjured up chairs. Once the twenty or so avatars had taken seats, the tableau looked altogether like a crackpot tea party. Exactly!
The conversation, conducted by the people behind the avatars, unscrolled in a chatlog. It blended erudite wit with sublime goofiness and played out in a headlong rush; at least three discussions seemed to be happening concurrently. While J.J. and several others talked about the mathematical puzzles embedded in Lewis Carroll’s books, exclamations of “Off with their heads!” and other spirited interjections peppered the chat. Occasionally, someone would drop the charade, as when one of the avatars “realizes how silly a gargoyle discussing literature is.”
I was too overcome by the speed and non-sequiturial madness of it all to add much; instead, I sat meekly on my stool at home, while Marilena daintily lifted teacup to mouth and looked perfectly at ease at the banquet table on the lawn, surrounded by the plumed citizens of Caledon. In real time, it was Sunday afternoon in my kitchen in New York, and my real children kept coming in to pop soda cans and ask what was for dinner. “Shhh! I’m working!” I said, and they rolled their eyes. “Sure you are.”
“Nonsense requires sense,” one gentleman was declaring as I snapped back to attention, just in time for the discussion about the hookah and the stoned caterpillar and a few disparaging remarks about the novel’s unsatisfying ending. “Ooh…that provokes me no end, that ending does,” one avatar summed up.
“What a lovely party,” chattered another. “More cake, anyone?”
On the one hand, people who had read the Alice books multiple times, had consulted the annotated edition, and referred to Lewis Carroll as Dodgson (his actual name) were having a real, if fractured, discussion in an unusual setting; on the other hand, the puns and jokes and sly references to the oddity of the scene were pure lark. Second Life, which made the magical aspects of our actions seem ordinary, was the ideal place to discuss Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. A chair appeared out of thin air each time another guest arrived. The teapots were filled with endless tea; the cakes multiplied instead of diminished. The Dormouse and the other creatures spoke. And wisps of wordplay and poetry echoed after the last guest teleported away—that provokes me no end, that ending does…
I’ll go out on a limb here. It was the most fun I’d ever had at a library event.
In the blunter, more prosaic, other world—the “aetheric world,” as Caledonians call it—J. J. Drinkwater was J. J. Jacobson, an itinerant librarian just shy of fifty, a former catalog and metadata specialist who left a real job to spend time cultivating library skills in the metaverse. Jacobson seemed to live from couch to couch, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, a small town in Idaho, Ann Arbor—friends in every port, and enough consulting work to keep going. A previous career as chef served as backup, and culinary librarianship was an enduring interest. But the bottom line was: “I left a faculty position in an academic library to do this full time.”
We met in Caledon at the library, formally known as the Jack and Elaine Whitehorn Library. The Whitehorns were the real life parents of the library’s benefactor, a Caledon resident who had a vision of an intellectual center and had appealed to the Alliance for a suitable head librarian. J.J. had just been raving to someone there about Caledon. So J.J. got the job, helped build the library, and found a central role for it in this already-thriving community.
J.J. firmly believed that “Libraries need to leverage every technological capacity we can…and we need to learn how to serve an expanding range of kinds of communities.” The Alliance virtual libraries are playgrounds for librarians and wonderful places to hold classes and events, but Caledon had something they didn’t: an active group of patrons, an organic virtual community. After Masterpiece Theatre ran a series of films based on Jane Austen novels, Caledonians flocked to this library for lively discussions; storytelling sessions and dress-up balls abounded. The haiku duels were wildly popular, and the librarian is something of a celebrity there, “a trophy librarian,” J.J. conceded.
I complimented him on the Alice in Wonderland tea, and he bowed from the waist, and said, “One reason to be a librarian in Second Life is that it is such a world where even serious professionals may frolic.”
He was dressed in an anachronistic uniform with ruffles and purple cuffs, and boots that a Hessian soldier might have worn clomping off to war. From time to time a large ledger appeared in his avatar’s hand and he busily made an entry. There was a half-smile on J.J.’s avatar face that periodically expanded to a full Cheshire.
Standing around the lovely library with its cozy wood furniture and rotunda structure, and gazing at the current exhibit—“‘How like an angel!’: Depicting Male Beauty in Word and Image,” which, among other portraits, included one of J. J. Drinkwater himself—we discussed the finer points of J.J.’s clever animations, and the distinctions between the librarian and the librarian-avatar. “J.J.’s real name is in the profile because I felt Caledon deserved to know that it had a real librarian running its library. Anyone can call
themselves anything here. It leads to immense chicanery, both commercial and intellectual.”
I agreed; and to small chicanery, too. I was thinking of the gulf between my appearance and my beauteous avatar’s when I asked if J. J. Drinkwater looked like J. J. Jacobson. There was a moment of confusion, then J.J.’s face changed a bit on my screen and the short dark hair, with little sprouts of bangs on either side of the forehead, turned into a long mane of brown hair, the top strands pulled back in a distinctly more feminine style. “This is closer,” J.J. said, and I thought, “Whoa! Who is this nineteenth-century gentleman? A candid fellow—though not, perhaps, a fellow?” “Cool,” I said, and, completely flustered, leapt right over the whole matter.
Then we embarked on a field trip to see some of the branch libraries of Caledon that have appeared thanks to J.J.’s inspiration and encouragement. I was particularly enchanted by the one in Tinyville, built for miniature avatars (usually furries in the shape of animals like badgers or penguins). There were stores that sell avatars, along with hundreds of outfits, costumes, and props, and now there was also a library, with a low door, miniature chairs, and, inside, digital collections consisting of links to stories about short things, like children and short fiction. There was even a link to the Wizard of Oz exhibit at the Library of Congress, a nod, no doubt, to the Munchkins. The library was set on a street of tiny buildings. A miniature blacksmith shop next door, set in an old tree trunk, had a fire burning inside. The whole neighborhood was set in a jewel of a forest. I felt like we were in a fairy tale. J.J. and Marilena stood on the sidewalk for a while, chatting. J.J. taught classes in virtual librarianship for the Alliance, and used one of his “alts” (short for alternative avatars) as a teaching assistant. “I don’t get the alts,” I told him. “How does that work? How can you have more than one avatar going at once?”
This Book Is Overdue! Page 13