MMOGs as Third Place

Found this through the Escapist magazine ( http://www.escapistmagazine.com )

"Some online video games found to promote 'sociablity'."

The researchers, Constance Steinkuehler and Dmitri Williams, claim that MMOs function not like solitary dungeon cells, but more like virtual coffee shops or pubs where something called "social bridging" takes place. They even liken playing such games as "Asheron's Call" and "Lineage" to dropping in at "Cheers," the fictional TV bar "where everybody knows your name." "By providing places for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function much like the hangouts of old," they said. And they take it one step further by suggesting that the lack of real-world hangouts "is what is driving the MMO phenomenon" in the first place. The new conceptual study was published in early August in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication under the title, "Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as 'Third Places.' "

(UNL does have access to the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, but the August issue doesn't appear to be up online through our subscription links.)

e-Branches

I don't like to copy-paste articles into blogposts, but for anyone interested in the idea of e-branches, here's a good article I found. (available at UNL through OmniFile)

Kenny, Brian. "The Virtual Gets Real." Library Journal, 2003, vol 128 (15): 32-35.

"Librarians have been exploring electronic content and services for years, certainly since the card catalogs were automated in the early 1980s and users could access them through dial-up connections later in the decade. But in the past few years, with online content exploding via full-text databases and e-books, and new services, such as chat reference, suddenly available, the whole notion of the virtual library has become much more real."