While there has been increasing interest in how creative professionals find information to drive creative outputs, previous information behavior research has largely ignored how arts and crafts hobbyists look for information sources in their everyday lives. To fill this literature gap, we conducted interviews and observations with arts and crafts hobbyists to find out how they conceive potential DIY projects. The findings highlight three themes: the dearth of human sources, the prevalence of domain-specific information, and the use of self-curated information. In addition to empirical results, this work also broadens the understanding of information behavior in an arts and crafts context by studying populations beyond professional artists

Buchanan, G.

Lee, L.

Makri, S.

McKay, D.

Ocepek, M. G.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology

English

City Research Online

              City, University of London Institutional RepositoryCitation: Lee, L., Ocepek, M. G., Makri, S. ORCID: 0000-0002-5817-4893, Buchanan, G. and McKay, D. (2019). Getting creative in everyday life: Investigating arts and crafts hobbyists' information behavior. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 56(1), pp. 703-705. doi: 10.1002/pra2.141 This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link:  https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/23575/Link to published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pra2.141Copyright and reuse: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to.City Research Online:            http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/            publications@city.ac.ukCity Research OnlineGetting Creative in Everyday Life: Investigating Arts andCrafts Hobbyists’ Information BehaviorLo LeeUniversity of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign,Champaign, USAlolee2@illinois.eduMelissa G. OcepekUniversity of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign,Champaign, USAmgocepek@illinois.eduStephann MakriCity, University ofLondon, London, UKstephann@city.ac.ukGeorge BuchananUniversity of Melbourne,Melbourne, Australiageorge.buchanan@unimelb.edu.auDana McKayUniversity of Melbourne,Melbourne, Australiadana.mckay@unimelb.edu.auABSTRACTWhile there has been increasing interest in how creative profes-sionals ﬁnd information to drive creative outputs, previousinformation behavior research has largely ignored how artsand crafts hobbyists look for information sources in theireveryday lives. To ﬁll this literature gap, we conducted inter-views and observations with arts and crafts hobbyists to ﬁndout how they conceive potential DIY projects. The ﬁndingshighlight three themes: the dearth of human sources, the prev-alence of domain-speciﬁc information, and the use of self-curated information. In addition to empirical results, this workalso broadens the understanding of information behavior in anarts and crafts context by studying populations beyond profes-sional artists.KEYWORDSInformation behavior; sources; arts and crafts; hobbyistsASIS&T THESAURUSInformation seeking; information sourcesINTRODUCTIONThere has been increasing research interest in how creative pro-fessionals ﬁnd information as both a driver and enabler of crea-tive outputs (see, for example, Hemmig, 2009;Makri, Hsueh,&Jones, 2019). Moving beyond work contexts is important, as itallows for a fuller understanding of behaviors. Hartel (2003) hassuggested the signiﬁcance of studying information-rich hobbiesto gain a broader understanding of information behavior. Thearts and crafts hobby is one activity that has received little atten-tion from previous information behavior research. Seekingcreative inspiration usually is an information-heavy process,as sources of inspiration are varied, idiosyncratic, and existeverywhere (Hemmig, 2009). To this end, we investigate howhobbyists navigate information sources in the arts and craftsdomain to motivate their creative practices.BACKGROUNDPrevious literature divides information sources into differentcategories. For instance, Savolainen (2008) classiﬁed six sourcetypes: human sources, printedmedia, networked sources, broad-cast media, organizational sources, and other sources, and foundhuman sources were the most favored approach. Another kindof source in everyday life, which does not fall into this classiﬁ-cation, is domain-speciﬁc sources (Ocepek, 2016). Domain-speciﬁc information directly relates to the information environ-ment unique to the activity and helps individuals in those spacesacquire information. For example, labels and in-store signs aredomain-speciﬁc information in grocery stores which are likelyto affect grocery shoppers’ information interaction.In the arts and crafts context, prior research has typicallyexamined how professional artists interact with information(e.g., Gorichanaz, 2018; Hemmig, 2009). From their ﬁnd-ings, it is apparent that artists rely on various sources, suchas memories, conversations, and personal works, to seekinspiration. Moving beyond examining professionals canprovide meaningful insights for information source develop-ment and provision.METHODSWe examined the information behavior of arts and crafts hob-byists at two sites: one digital - Pinterest (pinterest.com), theother a brick-and-mortar crafts store. We recruited 20 partici-pants in total (10 for each site) with self-declared interests inarts and crafts, through weekly university newsletters, ﬂyers,and personal contact. Our study included semi-structuredinterviews and think-aloud observations. The study began82nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science &Technology | Melbourne, Australia | 19–23 October, 2019Author(s) retain copyright, but ASIS&T receives an exclusive publicationlicenseDOI: 10.1002/pra2.00141ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2019 703 Posterswith pre-interviews to learn participants’ experiences witharts and crafts and their current interests. Next, the partici-pants explored the sites for 30-minutes and were observed.During the observations, participants were asked to browsefor 15 minutes and then seek a particular item for 15 minutes.We asked participants to verbalize their feelings and thoughtsthroughout the observations. After the observation, we con-ducted two post-interviews for participant debrieﬁng and datavalidation. We audio-recorded each interview, observation,and took notes. A bottom-up Thematic Analysis of transcriptsand ﬁeld notes was conducted to identify sources ofinformation used.FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONBetween the data collected at both sites, we identiﬁed27 information sources from interviews and observations.Within the 143 mentions of sources, domain-speciﬁcinformation—the top source of this study—was mentioned72 times. These sources had slightly higher mentions fromPinterest participants likely due to the ability to organizeinformation in the Pinterest setting. Networked sources werementioned 50 times, with 41 and 9 mentions by Pinterest andstore participants. Additionally, there were 10 mentions ofhuman sources, 8 mentions of printed media, and 3 mentionsof organizational sources. Based on empirical data, we iden-tiﬁed three interesting themes.The Dearth of Human SourcesThe ﬁrst theme we noted from the diversity of sources was thedearth of human sources. In our ﬁndings, human sourceswere mentioned 10 times, and there were two types of them:friends and store staff. Participants regarded friends assources by meeting with them regularly. For example, onePinterest participant described how she interacted withfriends to seek ideas: “We have like a club that we meet oncea month, and we just kind of talk about ideas.” Store staff, notjust those in the brick-and-mortar store in this study, becamesources when participants questioned them and learnedsomething new from them. For instance, one store participantmentioned he liked chatting with store employees: “I feel insmall stores, staff is more familiar with their products andare more passionate about introducing what they have. I likeinteracting with staff like that and learn from them.” Unlikeprevious literature, human sources were less covered by ourparticipants, possibly due to the explorative nature of seekinginspiration. Such tasks are not driven by knowledge gaps typ-ically having exact answers. Instead, as ideas can be every-where, arts and crafts hobbyists may try to discovernumerous sources to optimize creativity.Domain-Speciﬁc InformationThe second theme we identiﬁed was the common uses ofdomain-speciﬁc information from participants. For Pinterestparticipants, when seeing pictures selected by Pinterest, theyfrequently considered them as potential projects they couldwork on. For store participants, many of themmentioned theyliked the layout of the store and how products were displayedbecause they could spark their inspiration. One store partici-pant said she would revisit the store in this study when seek-ing future craft ideas: “I get a lot of ideas when I am walkingaround place like this, so I would deﬁnitely come here forthings like that.” Domain-speciﬁc information was found tobe a popular source in grocery stores as individuals reliedheavily on things such as price tags or expiration dates whenselecting items (Ocepek, 2016). This research aligns with theprevious ﬁnding on domain-speciﬁc sources and extends theliterature into the arts and crafts context.Self-Curated InformationThe third interesting theme we sawwas participants’ habits ofpreserving useful information. For example, when partici-pants found something engaging, they liked to collect andorganize them for later use. We call this type of source self-curated information. One store participant shared how sheused self-curated information found online in grocery stores:“Sometimes I like to print pictures out because then when I goto the grocery store, I have a list of what I need. Sometimes Ican just put it on my phone so I’m not gonna lose it.” Self-curated information sources were more observed by Pinterestparticipants. This may be because of the special functionsPinterest has for individuals to save images (“pin it”) and cat-egorize them (“make boards”). One Pinterest participantexplained how she used these tools when seeking craft ideas:“When I get ready to do the project, I’ll pull up the boardsthat I pin those to, and kind of look at them and get moreinspiration.” Here boards and pinned pictures were partici-pants’ self-curated information.We categorized these sourcesas domain-speciﬁc information.CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCHThis work identiﬁes the information sources arts and craftshobbyists use when seeking ideas. We identiﬁed three inter-esting themes: the dearth of human sources, the prevalenceof domain-speciﬁc information, and the use of self-curatedinformation. Future work can determine whether thesethemes extend to other creative everyday life domains(e.g., photography, gardening). This study provides insightinto the use of information sources for creative purposesand provides a more holistic understanding of informationbehavior in the arts and crafts domain that extends beyondthe behavior of professional artists.REFERENCESGorichanaz, T. (2018). Art and everyday information behav-ior: Sources of understanding. Proceeding of the ASIS&T,Vancouver, Canada, 143–150.Hartel, J. (2003). The serious leisure frontier in library andinformation science: Hobby domains. Knowledge Orga-nization, 30(3-4), 228–238.ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2019 704 PostersHemmig, W. (2009). An empirical study of the information-seeking behavior of practicing visual artists. Journal ofDocumentation, 65(4), 682–703.Makri, S., Hsueh, T. L., & Jones, S. (2019). Ideation as anintellectual information acquisition and use context:Investigating game designers’ information-based ideationBehavior. JASIST.Ocepek, M. G. (2016). Shopping for sources: An everydayinformation behavior exploration of grocery shoppers’information sources. Proceeding of the ASIS&T, Copen-hagen, Denmark, 1–5.Savolainen, R. (2008). Source preferences in the context ofseeking problem-speciﬁc information. Information Pro-cessing & Management, 44(1), 274–293.ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2019 705 Posters

Getting creative in everyday life: Investigating arts and crafts hobbyists' information behavior

Hartel J.

Makri S.

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Lee, L

Ocepek, MG

Makri, S

Buchanan, G

McKay, D

University of Melbourne Institutional Repository

https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/23575/1/Lee%20at%20al.%20-%20Getting%20creative%20in%20everyday%20life%20-%20Investigating%20arts%20and%20crafts%20hobbyists%27%20information%20behavior.pdf

Getting creative in everyday life: Investigating arts and crafts hobbyists' information behavior

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