Sakai-etal2015

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Sakai-etal2015
BibType ARTICLE
Key Sakai-etal2015
Author(s) Shinichiro Sakai, Tomomi Shigeyoshi Sakai, Ron Korenaga
Title Learning to become a better poet: Situated information practices in, of, and at a Japanese tanka gathering
Editor(s)
Tag(s) Ethnography, Information Science, Ethnomethodology, Knowledge
Publisher
Year 2015
Language
City
Month
Journal Information Research
Volume 20
Number 1
Pages
URL Link
DOI
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished Online journal
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Introduction. This paper contributes to the growing body of practice-based and empirical approaches to information science research that examines the ways members of a community engage in mundane and everyday information-related activities. Particular attention to the situated practices from which collective and collaborative learning arises is paid.

Method. Observations at a series of gatherings of a group of Japanese poets were conducted. Audio-visual materials were recorded to repeatedly scrutinize the ‘doings’ of the gathering and information behaviours thereof.

Analysis. An ethnomethodological approach was taken to explicate embodied practices and their seen-but-unnoticed features that members work out to accomplish. In addition to how information is being put to use, what counts as information is addressed.

Findings. A variety of information behaviours occurred simultaneously, sequentially, and orderly to accomplish practical and organizational activities. Information seeking, for example, did not occur in isolation from other information behaviours. Over the course of members’ work, it was interrelated with information sharing and information creation as well as with the use of artefacts that surround the participants.

Conclusion. The findings reveal that information behaviours are organized as the interaction unfolds, which suggests an alternative view to the traditional approaches in information behaviour that constructs theoretical models to predict information behaviour as a goal. Practices that shape, use, and share knowledge that is both tacit and explicit are also identified. For the participants, none of the practices are remarkable. This, in turn, evidences that they assemble the naturally occurring and mundane activities of the gathering in its organizational terms.

Notes