This research presentation was given by Sheila Webber at the i3 conference in Aberdeen on 27 June 2013. It presents results from analysis of interviews of information behaviour related to activities carried out in the virtual world, Second Life.

1. Patterns of
blended
information
behaviour in
Second Life
Sheila Webber
I3, June 2013

2. Second Life (SL), a Virtual World (VW)
• VW = persistent, multiuser, avatars, networked
• 3-D VW world, owned by (& trademark of) Linden Lab
• Avatars- 3D representation of yourself – free to signup
• Most things created by SL residents: SL fashion
designers, architects, bakers, animal makers …. real
economy in SL
• Need to download SL browser & have good broadband
connection & computer graphics card
• Communication through text chat, voice and Instant
Messaging
• C. 70,000 people online simultaneously,
international, wide age range
Sheila Webber, 2013

3. SL?
• Diversity of activity in SL
• Longevity (10th birthday celebrations)
• Social and economic development within SL
• Substantial use of VWs by young people (see
http://www.kzero.co.uk/)
• My contention “Whilst not everyone wants to live a
SL, IB in SL can provide insights into how citizens
can navigate the blended information world of the
future” (Webber, 2013)
Sheila Webber, 2013

4. Sources of information hidden to the neophyte: regressing to “newbie” stage reminds one how much
information we process and negotiate in everyday physical lives

5. Sheila Webber, 2013

6. Sheila Webber, 2013

7. Shopping
Sheila Webber, 2013

8. Search within SL
Sheila Webber, 2013

9. Research Questions
1. What is the information behaviour (IB) of people
when seeking information about a SL activity (i.e.
something they do in SL e.g. teaching, attending a
concert, making a home, shopping)?
2. Are models of IB which emerged in other contexts
applicable to IB in a virtual world?
Sheila Webber, 2013

10. Data collection
• 91 one-to-one interviews undertaken by my 1st year
students in Second Life
• 49 educators, 21 librarians, 21 other (mostly professionals
plus some students)
• 49 British, 32 North American, 10 from other countries
• All but 4 at an advanced stage of participation in VWs
(Childs, 2010)
Academic year
• 2007/8
• 2008/9
• 2009/10
• 2011/12
No. interviewees
21
23
25
22
Sheila Webber, 2013

11. • Interviews
– I produced the interview guide
• starting point: “think about a time when you needed information
for an activity in SL”
– Students trained in interviewing in SL
– Normal ethics approval procedures; informed consent
– Text chat, so automatic transcript
• Analysis:
– Using existing IB models: Ellis (1993), Erdelez (1999),
Mansourian (2008)
– Inductive, to identify patterns and categories
Sheila Webber, 2013

12. Findings

13. Selected points cf. Ellis & Erdelez
• Chaining was frequent and jumped between search
in or outside SL, SL locations, people in and outside
SL, objects, websites etc.
• Browsing similarly included browsing SL land,
objects, people; one’s own content (e.g. inventory);
search engines and websites etc.
• Verifying of people included considering their
occupation, network of connections, relationship with
participant, amount of time in SL
Sheila Webber, 2013

14. • 45% of incidents involved information encountering; in a
further 23% of incidents the participant started talking about
other experiences of encountering
• “I was in the Hyde Park area of SL. While I was there,
chatting with some people, I noticed one of them was part of
a SL group “London Gossip” I realized this could be a group
that could help me interact with some people to gather
information” (I10-20).
• Encountering might, commonly, provide a successful end to
a search or stimulate new possibilities during a search
• Importance of people sources encountering (or serendipity
also emerged in Ostrander (2008) and Eisenberg et al.‘s
(2010) studies of IB in SL: see also Huvila et al. (2010)
Sheila Webber, 2013

15. Inductive analysis: Categories of Need
• Second Life. need is to acquire general instructions and
information on how to use SL.
• Location. need is to identify or to access a location in SL
• Land. The need is to transform the (SL) land or to acquire
or get rid of the land
• Item. need to acquire the SL item or to transform the item
• Avatar. need is to customise the SL avatar or to identify
avatar(s)
• Existing practice. need is to locate (work out the nature
of) existing practice
• Existing information about a specific subject. need is to
acquire information for some SL purpose. Sheila Webber, 2013

16. Categories of desired outcome
1. Practice. The subcategories are:
a) Enable my specific practice
b) Develop my practice
c) Impact others’ practice
2. Knowledge base. The aim of acquiring the information
is to add to personal knowledge and/or the collective
knowledge base
3. Second Life. The subcategories are:
a) Forming a SL
b) To live one’s SL
4. Life. The outcome is achieving a long term goal
Sheila Webber, 2013

17. Example 1
I10-2: Tool to make sculpted prims [custom designed 3D
shapes] to represent microorganisms (to teach biology in SL)
Need: Acquiring item [which will transform
other items]
Outcome: Enable my specific practice
Process: applying expertise (own and others’) and trying things
out to refine specification of what is needed to enable desired
outcome
Sheila Webber, 2013

18. “had noted a few things in passing previously” as had been thinking about it
for a while
Sent an instant message in SL
to an expert in SL building,
known to I10-2 Better advice than a search
engine
Expert has her own network
Expertise
Product A
Product B
Product C
Trial of (free) product A – rejection – not sufficient
I10-2 searched own blog
Trial of (free) product B – rejection – not flexible
Some problem
redefinition – willing to
pay – tool should
function within SL –
flexibility of output
Searched SL marketplace
(web shop for SL products)
Official SL wiki
Product C’s
wiki
Read
reviews
How to
use tool
No other
products
Purchase of product C
Search function in SL to find
inworld shop
Blogs about Product C and how
to use it
SheilaWebber,2013

19. I8-1: “I was searching for this scarf I’m wearing” (which a friend
had recommended)
Need: Acquiring item
Outcome: Live one’s SL
Process: trying different sources –
searching, browsing – until you find
the item that matches
Sheila Webber, 2013
Example 2

20. Tried various words in SL search –
nothing quite right
Visited and browsed a couple of SL
clothes shops that had found in search
– nothing quite right
Searched Google
Followed SLURL to SL
shop
Backup plan was asking friend who
mentioned scarf in first place
Purchase of scarf
Top hit was a link to post about
the scarves on the blog of the
SL fashion designer, with
picture
Example of designer blog
SheilaWebber,2013

21. How can we support people in becoming
information literate so they recognise their
information needs, in context, in the 21st
century, information-rich environment?
Webber, S. (2011) Perspectives on the information literate university. Presentation at the
Open University. http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/perspectives-on-the-information-
literate-university
An underlying, ongoing question …
SheilaWebber,2013

22. Information: preteens
Other young
people
Adults
Instant Message
Email
Telephone
Television
Radio
Books
Magazines
Websites
Search engines
Organisations
Meyers, E. Fisher, K. and
Marcoux, E. (2009) “Making
sense of an information
worlds: the everyday life
information behaviour of
preteens.” Library
Quarterly, 79 (3), 301–
341
“a tween might
consult a peer, who
recommends a
Web site, which is
vetted by a parent,
and ultimately they
together consult a
store professional.”
(p317)
“in nineteen of twenty-
five [searches] …
tweens used another
person as the primary
or secondary source of
information” (p317)
school , bus, shopping mall, sports fields, parks, home, churches , libraries , restaurants, shops
SheilaWebber,2013

23. Information Literacy … and computer games
- Gumulak, S. (2009) Video games:
the way to attract teenagers into the
library. MA thesis. Sheffield: UoS.
- Gumulak, S. and Webber, S. (2011)
"Playing video games: learning and
information literacy" Aslib proceedings,
63 (2/3), 241-255.
“I learned all about
camping, how to
light a fire. “
(Interviewee IIb12)
“ye I go back and
start the level again
to see if I missed
anything then I
read it is it says
anything for help. “
(Interviewee
XIIg12)
• Text boxes
• Game
environment
• Non player
characters
• Game booklet
& box
• Friends and
family
• Walkthru sites
(last resort)
•Review sites
•Search engines
•Forums
•Websites
20% wrote reviews
“if it is a good game
I write ‘try it it’s a
good game’ if it is
rubbish I write it’
(Interviewee Ib12)
Browsing, searching,
evaluating, applying
SheilaWebber,2013

24. Concluding thoughts
• These were professionals, often talking about searches
related to professional practice
– Are the “everyday” behaviours to do with the SL context or
the wider range of questions? (probably both)
– Why is there more research into IB of academics in research
than IB for teaching?
• Evidence of IL relating to different contexts (IL in SL, IL
in web search context)
• Hope to do more to explore the encountering
dimensions – why there was so much of it
Sheila Webber, 2013

25. Sheila Webber
Information School
University of Sheffield
s.webber@shef.ac.uk
SL & Twitter Sheila Yoshikawa
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com
http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber
http://yoshikawafashion.wordpress.com/
Graphics: Sheila Webber

26. References
• Childs C. (2010) Learners’ experience of presence in virtual worlds. PhD.
Coventry: University of Warwick, Institute of Education.
• Eisenberg M, Head A, Lin P, Marino J, and Karlova N. (2010) Research
on Credibility and Immersive Virtual Environments Grant #92258-0:
Annual Report for MacArthur Foundation. Seattle, WA: Information
School University of Washington, 2010.
http://vibe.ischool.washington.edu/PapersPosters/Eisenberg-
VIBE%20Project- Annual%20Narrative%20Report.pdf
• Ellis D, Cox D and Hall K.(1993) A comparison of the information
seeking researchers in the physical and social sciences. Journal of
Documentation, 49, 356 - 369.
• Erdelez S. (1999) Information encountering: it's more than just bumping
into information, Bulletin of the American Association for Information
Science 25 (3). http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-99/erdelez.html
• Huvila I, Holmberg K, Ek S and Widen-Wulff G.(2010) Social capital in
Second Life. Online information review, 34, 295-316 Sheila Webber, 2013

27. • Julien HE and Michels D. (2004) Intra-individual information behaviour in
daily life. Information Processing & Management, 40, 47–562.
• Mansourian Y, Ford N, Webber S and Madden A. (2008) An integrative
model of 'information visibility' and 'information seeking' on the web.
Program, 42, 402-417.
• Ostrander M. (2008) Talking, looking, flying, searching: information
seeking behaviour in Second Life. Library Hi Tech 2008; 26: 512–524.
• Webber, S. (2013) "Blended information behaviour in Second Life."
Journal of information science, 39(1), 85–100
• Webber S. (2010) Investigating modes of student inquiry in Second Life
as part of a blended approach. International Journal of Virtual and
Personal Learning Environments, 1, 55-70.
Sheila Webber, 2013