Last night we held a party in London to celebrate the relaunch of our Second Life presence, The Elucian Islands

Quick recap: Nature has been in Second Life for about two years and started with one island, Second Nature. In that time, we have expanded to three islands, given space to scientists working on SL projects, held talks by a whole range of scientists and recently branched out into mixed world events.

After two years, we think what started as our most experimental project of all has shown that it has a genuine place in the Nature stable. Some really interesting projects have taken place there (stay tuned for a series of posts highlighting some of them), RL collaborations have resulted, and hundreds of people have attended events to hear scientists talk about their work.

So it’s clear to us that SL has real value and it’s also clear that that value is not limited to scientists. So today I am delighted to welcome my colleagues from our parent company Macmillan Publishers to our home in Second Life.

Macmillan is a huge publishing house with a variety of arms. Perhaps the best known is Pan Macmillan, our fiction imprint, publishers of authors including Jeffrey Archer, Ken Follett and Alice Sebold. I will write more about Macmillan and its businesses later.

Second Life clearly has enormous potential for many of our Macmillan products and I am very excited about all the activity we can expect to see from them in the next few months. I know they are also excited, so if you have a favourite author you’d like to hear speak or have another idea, let me know and I’ll pass it on!

To welcome them to this new joint venture, a name change seems appropriate and from today onwards, our SL presence will be known as the Elucian Islands. Second Nature is obviously too fine a name to lose and our second and third islands will continue to bear that name. Additionally, the Elucian Islands are divided into regions: the southern half of the island will be devoted solely to scientific exhibits and activities and will be known as Second Nature.

Confusing? Come and visit us and see the map for yourself ;-)

So a warm welcome to the rest of Macmillan and more on the launch party and the new facilities in the next post!