When Stephen Abrams came to the BookNet Canada Technology Forum 2008, he spoke about the popularity of Second Life Library. (Stephen’s slides and podcast here). It turns out Second Life isn’t just for people wanting to visit a virtual library—it’s also for researchers who want to be able to simulate library interactions between books, patrons and RFID technology in 3D space. It is an interesting application. Until now, only the very biggest companies could build 3D simulations to test new products, buildings or processes. Now Second Life has commoditized virtual spaces and democratized their creation. This library research is one manifestation of that. I wonder what else is going on out there?
3D Library Visit: Using Second Life To Research Everyday Problems (Science Daily)