To preserve virtual creativity and digital heritage – how to archive early video games, electronic literature and Second Life?

How to preserve virtual songs and shows of Mel Cheeky in the world of Second Life? She is only an avatar of real Melanie Fudge and plays in the world of Second Life. How can her on-line creativity be archived and opened for anybody?

As it can be found here, the new project is being developed to preserve digital games, interactive fiction, and shared realtime virtual spaces. It is prepared by The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), University of Illinois, Stanford University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Linden Lab – the creator of well known Second Life.

The main task of this project is to work out the methods of preserving virtual worlds (from interactive electronic literature, photos and movies, digital games, to virtual worlds such as Second Life), as they can be reached after the years by researches and historians.

The awarded project is part of the Library of Congress program National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation. Members of the project are going to develope standards of preservating such materials (for exapmle, digital photography has no accepted standard set of rules for handling digital image files and maintaining information about them). The cases of ntellectual property are also very important.

Experts from University of Illinois will focus on digital games and interactive fiction. As it can be read here, major activities will include developing basic standards for metadata and content representation and conducting a series of archiving case studies for early video games, electronic literature and Second Life, an interactive multiplayer game. Second Life content participants include Life to the Second Power, Democracy Island and the International Spaceflight Museum.

Here you can find a presentation of the program: Preserving Digital Culture.

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Kategorie: In english / Zasoby