Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Interdisciplinary Platform For Information Behaviour Research In The Liberal Arts Hobby, Jenna Hartel

Jenna Hartel

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.

Findings – The basic informational features of the liberal arts …

State Of Play: Information Phenomena In A Leisure Context, Jenna Hartel, Ian Ruthven, Max Wilson, Christopher Young

Jenna Hartel

This panel presents current information behaviour research in the context of leisure. It continues a tradition of locating work within the theoretical framework of leisure, the Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP). Five years has passed since the last public discussion of this topic at an ASIS&T Annual Meeting and in the intervening time much progress has been made in understanding leisure information phenomena. Our goals are to stimulate interest in leisure as a setting for information behaviour scholarship; provide a status report on the topic; and introduce new ideas associated with digital gaming, fun, and happiness. The panel includes four concise …

Information In The Hobby Of Gourmet Cooking - Four Contexts, Jenna K. Hartel

Jenna Hartel

This chapter aims to characterize the information activities and information resources that underlie the hobby of gourmet cooking in America. Gourmet cooking has roots in French haute cuisine and is a manner of food preparation that entails high quality or exotic ingredients and advanced technical skills (Wilson 2003). It is featured today at many high end or “white tablecloth” restaurants, associated with cultural icon Julia Child, and has been adopted by millions of Americans as a hobby. Given its complexity to execute, gourmet cooking is information intensive and generates a vast multimedia information universe. Altogether, this hobby is a rich …

Leisure And Hobby Information And Its User, Jenna K. Hartel

Jenna Hartel

This article examines leisure in North America and western Europe with a focus on its information activities. To start, leisure is located as a research topic in different information science specialties. Then, a theoretical framework of leisure, the serious leisure perspective, is introduced as a means to systematically discuss three different forms of leisure and some of the information activities they harbor, drawing upon illustrations from the literature of information science. To conclude, future directions for research into leisure and the implications for the information sciences are discussed.

Managing Documents At Home For Serious Leisure: A Case Study Of The Hobby Of Gourmet Cooking, Jenna K. Hartel

Jenna Hartel

Purpose – This paper describes the way participants in the hobby of gourmet cooking in the United States 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. Twenty gourmet cooks in the United States 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 (or PCL): a constellation of cooking-related information resources and information …

Towards Positive Information Science, Jenna K. Hartel, Jarkko Kari, Robert Stebbins, Marcia Bates

Jenna Hartel

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 propose 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 …

Information Activities And Resources In The Hobby Of Gourmet Cooking, Jenna K. Hartel

Jenna Hartel

Introduction. A framework for information science based on time is proposed, derived from an exploratory, ethnographic study of information in the hobby of gourmet cooking. Method. Participant obseration of the social world of the hobby, plus twenty semi-structured interviews with hobby cooks, followed by a photographic inventory of their household culinary information collections. Analysis. Data were analysed using grounded theory facilitated by NVivo software. While coding information activities and resources, time emerged as a critical aspect of the hobby and its information phenomena. Results. The hobby unfolds as three temporal arcs. The career arc that lasts for years or decades …

Taking Leisure Seriously: Information Realities In Leisure Time, Jenna Hartel, Donald Case, Crystal Fulton, Shan Ju Chang

Jenna Hartel

This panel presents the information realities that exist within leisure time. It introduces a conceptual model of leisure, called serious leisure (Stebbins, 1982), that affirms the role of information in enabling leisure experience. Our panel offers a theoretical perspective and case studies of a meaningful area of everyday life that has not been a subject of much information research. The specific goals are threefold:

1.) To present state of the art theorizing and research underway into the information seeking and use that occurs in the everyday life realm of leisure

2.) To introduce serious leisure, a concept that serves as …

Serious Leisure, Jenna Hartel

Jenna Hartel

No abstract provided.

Review Of Music, Culture, And The Library: An Analysis Of Discourses, Jenna Hartel

Jenna Hartel

No abstract provided.

The Serious Leisure Frontier In Library And Informtion Science: Hobby Domains, Jenna Hartel

Jenna Hartel

Research on information behavior rarely focuses on leisure realms while favoring scholarly and professional contexts as subjects. Such is the case despite compelling evidence of the desirability and profundity of leisure in human life. This article introduces one popular form of leisure, hobbies, a potentially provocative topic for ISB scholarship. To facilitate research on information within hobbies, the article discusses two conceptual devices. Serious leisure (Stebbins, 1982) describes essential characteristics of leisure, establishes that some types are information-rich, and provides a framework to study leisure systematically. The collectivist theory of domain analysis (Hjørland and Albrechtsen, 1995) orients research to the …