Library of Congress: Backing Up Second Life?

Yesterday, when I wrote 'Beyond Linden lab', I had not even heard a whispered rumor of the Library of Congress project mentioned by New Scientist:

...It is one thing to preserve copies of the architecture and objects in such worlds. But worlds like Second Life are much more than that. Without a body of active users, they do not really exist. And those users can't be archived and booted up and far in the future.

The Stanford team leading that part of the project may find themselves embarking on ethnographic expeditions to make videos and other recordings of 'natives' going about their business.

Once archived though, the stockpiled virtual worlds could offer a kind of time travel to people in the future. At least if it becomes normal to lead a double existence between virtual and real worlds - as people including those behind this Chinese project think...

The project was mentioned in August, 2007 and was later announced in a virtual world context by the HTGG2 team. [w:Douglas Adams] is probably rolling in his grave. It is a bit of a travesty, methinks... but HHGTTG != H2GG2

What is interesting is whether there will be bias in the recording. Most of Second Life residents exist outside of the United States, and this is a part of the Preserving Creative America Initiative. History is written by those who write it, and is always subjective in that regard. Other things such as copyright ownership may well plague this project as they have plagued the BBC's attempts to open its own archives as open content.

But then, aren't websites that cover Second Life and Virtual Worlds also a part of historical record, even if only in the Internet Archive? Of course they are. And usually self-funded, too.

How this is all handled will decide its success. But what in Second Life is worthy of being archived? I have a few favorite places that have disappeared, such as RenFest island. People who have left, such as James Gill.

But then, I certainly would like some of the ad spammers and ethically challenged landbot owners on record. And perhaps the mystery of Nicholas Portocarrero will be resolved - I am surprised that there hasn't been a subpoena on that yet... :-)