Taking Flight with Document Diffraction

Urban, Alex

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121615 Copy

Description

Title

Taking Flight with Document Diffraction

Author(s)

Urban, Alex

Issue Date

2022

Keyword(s)

• joy of information
• document diffraction

Date of Ingest

2023-12-20T03:09:42-06:00

Abstract

To address the shortage of research that examines positive information experiences, this post-qualitative study examines how a hobbyist artifact fosters joy. This research focuses on the entanglements between a single person and a single document—specifically, a birding life list. Drawing from research on serious leisure pursuits, information behavior, and document studies, this playful examination uses auto-methodologies and poststructural techniques. By plugging in theory with depictions of the artifact and corresponding self-reflections, the study presents five elements of joy that emerged from the process. Born out of a series of diffractions, joy appeared through reflection on the hobbyist arc, the excitement of searching and collecting, storytelling, memoralia (narrative keepsakes), and the bittersweet feeling of joy's transience. Although this study focuses on list making, a behavior inherently imbued with rigidity, it presents the possibilities of fluid methodologies to examine positive human experiences in information science.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press and the Illinois School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Series/Report Name or Number

Library Trends 70 (4). Spring 2022

ISSN

0024-2594

Type of Resource

text

Genre of Resource

article

Language

eng

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2022.0020

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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