Sensible Shopping: A Sensory Exploration of the Information Environment of the Grocery Store

Grocery shopping is an everyday activity ideal for exploring how the body impacts information behaviors in the form of sensory-based information sources. Previous information behavior research has largely ignored the body and its relationship to information behaviors. The present work expands two areas of information behavior research, the importance of the body in information behavior, and our understanding of nontextual and verbal information sources. Both expansions work toward creating a more accurate and holistic understanding of information behaviors and the contexts they exist within. Through two empirical studies using qualitative methods, the sensory experience of the grocery store is explored. Findings demonstrate that grocery shoppers rely on their sight, taste, touch, and smell in the act of information seeking, encountering, sharing, and browsing throughout the process of grocery shopping

From Virtual to Physical: An Exploratory Study on how Online Social Networks and Communities Influence Decision-Making in Everyday Crafting

The popularity of the maker movement has prompted extensive research on how the maker spirit enhances learning and redefines entrepreneurism. However, what is left unknown is the dynamic process of making as a hobby and how it may cut across virtual and physical media. To seal this gap, we conducted a qualitative study to investigate how online social networks and communities (OSNCs) may play a role in influencing making-related decisions. We carried out diary studies and semi-structured individual interviews with 25 arts and crafts hobbyists. The findings show that YouTube and Pinterest are the top two mentioned sources to facilitate ideation about what to make. Participants mostly turned to YouTube and Reddit to address problems when getting stuck. We demonstrate the direct and close relationship between tangible making and OSNCs as a multidimensional source, showing how virtual user-generated content can impact everyday hands-on practices

Everyday shopping : an exploration of the information behaviors of grocery shoppers

The field of everyday information behavior addresses how individuals interact with information in their everyday life. Previous research in the field has largely ignored the banal and quotidian portion of everyday life that scholars of the critical and cultural theory of the everyday emphasize. This dissertation seeks to enhance the scholarly knowledge of everyday information behavior by demonstrating that critical and cultural theory offers concepts and theories that enable the field to more thoroughly explore the everyday. Through two empirical studies using qualitative methods inspired by institutional ethnography, this dissertation shows how everyday information scholars can investigate the mundane everyday activity of grocery shopping to gain a deeper understanding of the information behaviors involved. The first empirical study addresses the nurturer persona, a concept based on the role of the food provider. The second empirical study addresses the creative persona, a concept based on the creativity a recreational grocery shopper can enact in the grocery store. The data from the empirical studies is analyzed using three different perspectives (grocery shopping perspective, information behavior perspective, and critical and cultural theory perspective) drawn from distinct but related research literatures to highlight the complexity of grocery shoppers’ information behavior. The findings from the grocery shopping perspective show a strong presence of the nurturer and creative personas that impact a grocery shoppers’ experience in the grocery store. The findings from the information behavior perspective show the process of grocery shopping as information-rich and consisting of many different information behaviors. They also show how aspects of the nurturer and creative personas influence the information behaviors of grocery shopping. Finally, the findings from the critical and cultural theory perspective show that grocery shopping engages in an intensive and active way in ‘everyday’ information behavior. This finding is demonstrated through concepts developed by combining critical and cultural theory with concepts and concerns from everyday information behavior research.Informatio

“The real library world is dirty and you don't learn that at all in schools”

This poster presents findings of a content analysis based on survey responses collected from 51 librarians who provided vehemently critical feedback on the disconnection between their job realities and their library and information science (LIS) education. The study aims to understand why these librarians are vehemently critical in hopes of seeding an honest conversation about how to improve future LIS education. This is also part of a larger research project based on a survey among 759 currently working librarians and information professionals. Through this study, we found that real-life situations of librarianship, such as challenging social work, security concerns and job prospects, are very important, but they are usually not frequently talked about in LIS programs, which left students unprepared for their real jobs. This poster sheds light on this problem and provides suggestions on how to enhance the effectiveness of education of LIS programs through joint efforts of educators and students

Teaching Tweeting: Recommendations for Teaching Social Media Work in LIS and MSIS Programs

A combination of public relations, marketing, advertising, and information and communication technologies, social media work is an increasingly important part of information professionals' jobs. This paper reports on a survey-based study of 49 information professionals who routinely use social media in their work. Respondents provided information about their most-used social media tools and platforms, described their specific social media tasks, and shared how they learned to use social media. They also gave advice on the possible integration of social media into an MLIS or MSIS curriculum. While considering technical skills and the knowledge of specific platforms to be important, respondents also recommend that professionals be able to multi-task, work and update their knowledge independently, and adopt new technologies. Above all, respondents emphasized the high standards for social media communication and encouraged strong written communications skills, thus suggesting that MLIS and MSIS coursework should actively develop such skills

Listen to Librarians: Highlighted Core Competencies for Librarianship from the Perspectives of Working Librarians

Librarianship is constantly confronted with unexpected and quickly evolving sociotechnical challenges, yet the documents that define the core professional competencies for librarians are infrequently updated. Based upon survey responses collected from 383 working librarians located in the United States, we describe a set of gaps between current competency guidelines and current library realities with regard to practice, management, communication, career development, relations, and personal attributes. We argue that professional library organizations, educators, and policymakers could formulate more relevant and impactful core competency documents by deliberately integrating the on-the-ground insights of librarians&rsquo; lived experience. &nbsp;</p

21st Century Information Workers: What Core Competencies Should MSIS Students Learn?

The day-to-day work of information workers charged with information creation, organization, presentation, preservation, analysis, and retrieval is changing dramatically because of rapid advances in technology, the ubiquitous availability of information, and the increasing diversity and globalization of users, patrons, and co-workers. Further, the jobs themselves are changing, such that information workers are not likely to focus on one traditional information task, but must integrate other knowledge and skills, such as data analysis (with large data) and social media. The array of jobs and tasks leads us to ask: what are the core competencies for all information studies students? The authors conducted a survey of more than 2,000 information professionals focusing on six information work roles (archivy, data analysis, librarianship, records/digital assets management, social media, and user experience) to find out about their day-to-day work and their recommendations for formal curriculum. In this special session, we will organize a lively discussion debating professionals’ conflicting recommendations for formal iSchool curriculum.ye

"It makes me feel weird": Student Conceptions of the Algorithm

Information literacy instructors have the opportunity address issues related to algorithms in their instruction. Because discussions of algorithms touch on topics related to privacy, capitalism, and discrimination, this instruction is best supported by a critical information literacy model, which centers students as experts on their own experiences. Groups like Project Information Literacy have been active in researching issues related to algorithms and information literacy to advise librarians on how these issues can be prioritized in information literacy instruction. However, these studies can take for granted that students have unique ways of describing algorithms from their experiences on apps like TikTok and Instagram. To address this, we conducted interviews with undergraduate students to better understand how they discuss algorithms through their lived experiences. This poster builds on existing scholarship by analyzing the implicit and explicit ways students explain algorithms, including their perceptions of being watched or listened to, the vocabulary they use, and what it feels like to both love and fear “the algorithm”.Ope