Research Help
Research HelpKey ResourcesServices
Go up one level 
Printer-friendly page

Second Life – Tips for Newbies

Equipment, Software and Internet Connectivity

In order to use Second Life (SL), you need to register for an account, download software, and have a high speed Internet connection.

  • Check the Second Life web site for equipment and graphics requirements.
  • Basic accounts are free and do not require you to provide credit card information. Premium accounts are $9.95/mo and allow you to own land.
  • Once you have registered, you can download SL software on more than one computer, Mac or PC.
  • Be prepared for frequent software upgrades (about once a week), with about 4-5 hours downtime per upgrade, once every 2 or 3 months, usually on Wednesday mornings, 7 am to about noon.

Your SL Name

Free basic accounts allow you to use any first name you like, though you must pick a last name from a list provided to you.

  • Pick a first name carefully, as you cannot change it later, and it represents you.
  • If you pick a last name from the list and do not complete your registration, when you go back, that last name will no longer be available.

Your Avatar’s Appearance

Initially, you will have a choice of gender and a human form, though later you will be able to take on the appearance of your choice. Go through the following steps to save your avatar’s original appearance to your Inventory. You will always be able to go back to this appearance at a later time by clicking on Inventory at the bottom right of your screen, searching for that “outfit” and then dragging and dropping it onto your avatar.

  • As soon as you have an avatar, right click on it
  • Click Appearance
    • At the bottom of the window that pops up, click on Make Outfit
    • Change the name of the outfit to something memorable
    • Click all the checkboxes you can
    • Click Save

Learning to Work Within Second Life

Orientation Island: your first stop. Take your time going through the automated tutorials on many aspects of maneuvering your avatar, as well as moving around in and maneuvering objects within SL. Once you leave Orientation Island, you cannot return, although you can go to other areas within SL to relearn much of this.

After Orientation Island, go to Info Island to get an orientation tour to that island and to SL by a librarian, along with more tips and an ICT Library notecard on the top 20 educational sites in SL .

  • Click on Map at the bottom of the Second Life window
  • Type Info Island in Search box & press enter
  • Click on Info Island
  • Click on Teleport at the bottom of the Map

Create a “home” for your avatar by pulling down the World menu and selecting Set Home to Here when you’re in a location you want as your home location. If you get stuck somewhere, you can always pull down the World menu and return home.

Look for free items, including clothes, skin, hair, fur, wings, furniture, etc. by clicking on Search and then Places, and searching for “free.” “Free Dove” is a popular spot for free clothes and other items, especially for newbies.

Points to consider re SL use

  • Requires rather high end graphics capability. See http://secondlife.com/ for hardware requirements.
  • Requires software client (downloaded) and high speed Internet connection.
  • Frequent software upgrades must be downloaded in order to utilize SL.
  • There is a steep learning curve regarding manipulating your avatar, moving around on a site in SL, and moving from site to site within SL.
  • There are sleazy places and violent places within SL. For the most part you can avoid them, but some people may be offended or unhappy if confronted with either or both.
  • There is a limit to the number of avatars that can be in one sim at one time. To get around this, organizers of events sometimes try to locate them at the corners of two or more sims. [Note: As of 20 Feb 2007, the largest number of avatars I have seen at one event is 66.]
  • Teaching tools are available within SL for very low cost or for free (e.g., a whiteboard where you can display PowerPoint slide shows), through ICT, though you must learn to use them.
  • The primary means of communication in SL are chat and IM, though voice has now been enabled and audio streaming via Skype has been used at some events.
  • All SL usage is tracked by Linden Labs and site owners may also track usage. This could be a privacy issue.
  • Residents who create objects within SL own those objects and may sell, transfer or copy them within SL, but cannot take those objects out of SL.
  • An open source SL viewer is available, but so far you cannot create a sim outside of SL and then enter it through SL.

Help is available

  • Linden Labs has a blog and maintains a Knowledgebase.
  • Librarians on Info Island offer virtual reference, as well as tours of Info Island and its many libraries, and of SL.
  • New Media Consortium has expanded to a 30-archipelago set of islands and is offering land to member institutions for teaching locations, at a discounted rental fee.
  • The ICT Library offers ideas for class activities in a variety of disciplines.
  • Educators who run the ICT Library have offered to train people in the use of SL teaching tools.
  • Many SLers are kind and helpful, so just ask!
  • And, the UCLA Library is interested in working with faculty who want to utilize SL for their classes.

Brief SL Glossary

  • newbie or noob = person new to SL
  • tp = teleport (transport to an SL site
  • rez = resolve [images]
  • lm = landmark
  • lag = time it takes to resolve
  • $L = Linden dollar
  • griefer = person who attempts to do damage or grief
  • IM = Instant Message
  • sim = simulation

Created: October 05, 2007

Please attribute any usage as follows: Created by Esther Grassian, the UCLA Library and used with permission.