Jenna Hartel

Managing documents at home for serious leisure: a case study of the hobby of gourmet cooking

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the way participants in the hobby of gourmet cooking in the USA manage culinary information in their homes.Design/methodology/approach – The study utilizes domain analysis and serious leisure as a conceptual framework and employs an ethnographic approach. In total 20 gourmet cooks in the USA were interviewed at home and then their culinary information collections were documented through a guided tour and photographic inventory. The resulting ethnographic record was analyzed using grounded theory and NVivo software.Findings – The findings introduce the personal culinary library (PCL): a constellation of cooking‐related information resources and information structures in the home of the gourmet cook, and an associated set of upkeep activities that increase with the collections size. PCLs are shown to vary in content, scale, distribution in space, and their role in the hobby. The personal libraries are characterized as small, medium or large and case studies of each ext...

An Arts-Informed Study of Information Using the Draw-and-Write Technique

There are untold conceptions of information in information science, and yet the nature of information remains obscure and contested. This article contributes something new to the conversation as the first arts‐informed, visual, empirical study of information utilizing the draw‐and‐write technique. To approach the concept of information afresh, graduate students at a North American iSchool were asked to respond to the question “What is information?” by drawing on a 4‐ by 4‐inch piece of paper, called an iSquare. One hundred thirty‐seven iSquares were produced and then analyzed using compositional interpretation combined with a theoretical framework of graphic representations. The findings indicate how students visualize information, what was drawn, and associations between the iSquares and prior renderings of information based on words. In the iSquares, information appears most often as pictures of people, artifacts, landscapes, and patterns. There are also many link diagrams, grouping diagrams, symbols, and written text, each with distinct qualities. Methodological reflections address the relationship between visual and textual data, and the sample for the study is critiqued. A discussion presents new directions for theory and research on information, namely, the iSquares as a thinking tool, visual stories of information, and the contradictions of information. Ideas are also provided on the use of arts‐informed, visual methods and the draw‐and‐write technique in the classroom.

What everybody knows: embodied information in serious leisure

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the role of the body in information in serious leisure by reviewing existing work in information behaviour that theorises the role of the body, and by drawing selectively on literature from beyond information studies to extend our understanding.,After finding a lack of attention to the body in most influential works on information behaviour, the paper identifies a number of important authors who do offer theorisations. It then explores what can be learnt by examining studies of embodied information in the hobbies of running, music and the liberal arts, published outside the discipline.,Auto-ethnographic studies influenced by phenomenology show that embodied information is central to the hobby of running, both through the diverse sensory information the runner uses and through the dissemination of information by the body as a sign. Studies of music drawing on the theory of embodied cognition, similarly suggest that it is a key part of amateur music information behaviour. Even when considering the liberal arts hobby, the core activity, reading, has been shown to be in significant ways embodied. The examples reveal how it is not only in more obviously embodied leisure activities such as sports, in which the body must be considered.,Embodied information refers to how the authors receive information from the senses and the way the body is a sign that can be read by others. To fully understand this, more empirical and theoretical work is needed to reconcile insights from practice theory, phenomenology, embodied cognition and sensory studies.,The paper demonstrates how and why the body has been neglected in information behaviour research, reviews current work and identifies perspectives from other disciplines that can begin to fill the gap.

An interdisciplinary platform for information behavior research in the liberal arts hobby

Purpose – The liberal arts hobby is a leisure pursuit that entails the systematic and fervent pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the liberal arts hobby as a setting for information behavior research. Design/methodology/approach – The method of interdisciplinary translation work is used to relate existing research from the specialties of leisure studies, adult education, and information behavior. Drawing from leisure studies, the liberal arts hobby is presented within the context of the serious leisure perspective, a theoretical framework of leisure. Also, relevant research. Findings – The basic informational features of the liberal arts hobby and adult learning project are discussed in terms of three issues of current interest within information behavior scholarship. The issues are: first, social metatheory and the ideal level of analysis; second, time and information behavior; and third, information behavior in pleasurable and profound contexts. Research limi...

Pictorial metaphors for information

Purpose Arts-informed, visual research was conducted to document the pictorial metaphors that appear among original drawings of information. The purpose of this paper is to report the diversity of these pictorial metaphors, delineate their formal qualities as drawings, and provide a fresh perspective on the concept of information. Design/methodology/approach The project utilized pre-existing iSquare drawings of information that were produced by iSchool graduate students during a draw-and-write activity. From a data set of 417 images, 125 of the strongest pictorial metaphors were identified and subjected to cognitive metaphor theory. Findings Overwhelmingly, the favored source domain for envisioning information was nature. The most common pictorial metaphors were: Earth, web, tree, light bulb, box, cloud, and fishing/mining, and each brings different qualities of information into focus. The drawings were often canonical versions of objects in the world, leading to arrays of pictorial metaphors marked by their similarity. Research limitations/implications Less than 30 percent of the data set qualified as pictorial metaphors, making them a minority strategy for representing information as an image. The process to identify and interpret pictorial metaphors was highly subjective. The arts-informed methodology generated tensions between artistic and social scientific paradigms. Practical implications The pictorial metaphors for information can enhance information science education and fortify professional identity among information professionals. Originality/value This is the first arts-informed, visual study of information that utilizes cognitive metaphor theory to explore the nature of information. It strengthens a sense of history, humanity, nature, and beauty in our understanding of information today, and contributes to metaphor research at large.

Towards positive information science

This panel offers a refreshing counterpoint to the predominantly problem-oriented perspective of theory and research in information science. Drawing inspiration from the fields of positive psychology and sociology, we explore the idea of a positive information science. This line of inquiry focuses on the positive qualities of information systems and the positive characteristics and habits of information users, as well as on the positive contexts of or factors in information phenomena. Insights into positive information phenomena provide a benchmark and target for improving information environments. The positive perspective also reflects a new generation of information-users who harbor an upbeat sensibility concerning the tools and practices of the Information Age. The panel makes its case by 1 offering an interdisciplinary comparison to positive social sciences, 2 reporting results from two positively-oriented investigations of information use in gourmet cooking and spirituality, and 3 viewing the idea in the context of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (Bates & Maack, forthcoming), an important benchmark and rubric of the field. To encourage a dynamic session, panelists and audience will see a list of positive features compiled and displayed in real time, serving as a basis for lively discussion.

The Creative Deliverable: A Short Communication

This paper encourages educators in library and information science (LIS) to adopt the “creative deliverable,” that is, an assignment that gives students the freedom to display their understanding of course material in an almost unrestricted range of alternative formats and genres, while retaining some key features of traditional scholarship. Using the traditional essay as a point of comparison, we define the creative deliverable; profile its application in a library and information science course; display three examples; detail important practical considerations for its use; and share the student perspective.

State of the Art/Science: Visual Methods and Information Behavior Research

This panel reports on methodological innovation now underway as information behavior scholars begin to experiment with visual methods. The session launches with a succinct introduction to visual methods by Jenna Hartel and then showcases three exemplar visual research designs. First, Dianne Sonnenwald presents the “information horizon interview” (1999, 2005), the singular visual method native to the information behavior community. Second, Anna Lundh (2010) describes her techniques for capturing and analyzing primary school childrens information activities utilizing video recordings. Third, Nancy Fried Foster (Foster & Gibbons, 2007) reports how students, staff and faculty members produce maps, drawings, and photographs as a means of contributing their specialist knowledge to the design of library technologies and spaces at the University of Rochester. Altogether, the panel will present a collage of innovative visual research designs and engage the associated epistemological, theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues. All speakers will have 15 minutes and be timed to allow a minimum of 30 minutes for audience questions, comments, and discussion. Upon the conclusion attendees will have gained: knowledge of the state of the art/science of visual methods in information behavior research; an appreciation for the richness the approach brings to the specialty; and a platform to take new visual research designs forward.

The iSquare protocol: combining research, art, and pedagogy through the draw-and-write technique

This article introduces the iSquare protocol, a novel application of the draw-and-write technique. The protocol was developed in the field of information science to explore the visual dimension of information and as an alternative and complement to written definitions of information that dominate the literature. In addition to generating a new visual perspective on information, the approach has proven fruitful for artistic and pedagogical purposes. Here, the protocol is presented in detail for scholars within information science and those beyond who may adapt it to their own research questions. The article begins with an overview of the draw-and-write technique, followed by a history of its use in the iSquare Research Program. Then, the distinguishing features of the iSquare protocol, its artistic potentials and teaching applications are outlined. Links are provided to an instructional script and research instrument template, enabling turnkey implementation of the method.

The interdisciplinary study of information

To mark the 75th anniversary of ASIS&T this panel addresses the nature and recent history of the field of information science. It uses as a springboard The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages, a collection of writings edited by economist Fritz Machlup and Una Mansfield (1983). More than a quarter of a century ago, The Study of Information (for short) presented the mandates of nine research specialties centered on information, namely: cognitive science, informatics, artificial intelligence, linguistics, library and information science, cybernetics, information theory, and systems theory. By illuminating the concerns, similarities, and differences of these related domains the book established one of the first and most lucid geographies of information as an interdisciplinary academic enterprise. In its day, reviewers described The Study of Information as “a quite remarkable overview” (Hayes, 1985), “an extraordinary volume” (Barnes, 1985), and “an historically significant book” (Harmon, 1987).