Social Sim Research Lab library catalogue updated

My Second Life home, the Social Simulation Research Lab, houses a Library with links to over 100 cyber research references (articles, homepages, resources, research institutions, journals). You can access them by clicking on the books on the shelves, which will take you to links on the interweb.

I've updated the catalogue with new articles, reference materials and homepages using suggestions made by members of the community, and have created this handy index (no links there yet, I'm afraid), so you can see what's available. I intend to develop a search facility in-world soon.

So if you don't know your Bartle from your Turkle, your AoIR from your Terra Nova, or your Bargh from your Bruckman and are interested in what the academy has to say about communities, relationships and identity in cyberspace, you should come to the Library, grab a seat and read all about it.

I also welcome suggestions! If there's something you don't see in the library, but think it deserves to sit on the shelves, please email me at secondlife+at+surrey.ac.uk.

I've also created a new category: Current Research Projects in SL, which includes overviews of social science research projects that are currently underway in the virtual world.

The lecture series schedule is currently in development and will start in the New Year. Already there are some fantastic speakers lined up! Expect to see virtual world luminaries at the SSRL offering their insight and delivering seminars to the Second Life population very soon!

Observer does SL

A really great diary-like article in The Observer by Tim Adams last Sunday about one journalist's experience in the virtual world Second Life has an excellent explanation of the success of this metaverse (applicable to all metaverses, really):

The simple genius of Second Life is that it combines elements of Big Brother culture with the spirit of eBay. It plays to the contemporary urge to project ourselves into every story, to write our own emotions larger than anyone else's, to perform rather than to listen, to blog rather than read. And it also offers unlimited opportunities to shop.