Abstract. Now that information proliferates, information science should turn its attention toward higher-order epistemic aims, such as understanding. Before systems to support the building of understanding can be designed, the process of building understanding must be explored. This paper discusses findings from an interpretative phenomenological analysis study on the information experience of participants in a 100-mile footrace which reveal how these participants have built understanding in their athletic pursuits. Three ways in which ultrarunners build understanding -- by taking time, by undergoing struggle, and by incorporating multiple perspectives -- are described. The ensuing discussion leads to three questions that can guide the future development of information systems that support understanding: First, how can information science slow people down? Second, how can information science encourage people to willingly struggle? And third, how can information science stimulate analogical thinking?

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Abstract. Typically, arts information professionals are concerned with the documentation of artwork. As a provocation, this conceptual paper explores how art-making itself can be considered a form of documentation and finished artworks as documents in their own right. On this view, art works as evidence in referencing something else, within a broader system, and under scrutiny it exposes how it references. Some implications of this perspective are discussed, springing from a historical discussion of document epistemology, research on the information behavior of artists, and the philosophy of Nelson Goodman. This discussion provides a framework for conceptualizing artistic information behavior along the entire information chain. Framing art-making in the terms of information science in this way may help arts information professionals assist artists, and it provides grounds for deeper co-understandings between artists and information scientists. Additionally, once information scientists consider art as a kind of document, one can begin to see that even non-artistic documents perhaps never were as "objective" or "factual" as they may have seemed.

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First published in Chantwood Magazine, Fall 2017

Our faces fit together
Like continents.
Especially when I take my glasses off.

Slowly,
The plates drift,
And the earth quakes.

First published in Chantwood Magazine, Fall 2017

My legs wide
I hold the guitar close there like
Trying to merge two bodies and
When I play it I can
Feel the tremors in
my stomach I can
Feel it in my jaw

Dark wooden
Curved it always seemed to me
Mysterious like a piece of occult
Furniture as if
Standing at your dresser
Opening and closing
Drawers could be a way
Of making peace
With the universe

And then there’s
An etude where my fingers nothing works
Buzzing like a silent conversation
In a noisy bar it’s
Muted like a kiss
Where your teeth
Are clanking and
I pluck the wrong
String like an
Unwelcome touch

But when I finally
Play that measure right
This sounds dumb but I
Cry a little I
Don’t try it’s just I
Pull sounds from the guitar and it pulls back on me
A little like the moon passing quiet over the sea

First published in Straight Forward Poetry Journal, Spring 2014

1

in parks
on the sidewalk
especially on benches
in cars at stoplights
and the movie theater
on the metro
and the bus
in the stadium
at mcdonalds
supermarkets
the post office
and banks

all the places
ive seen people
making out

2

everyones
always talking
about this
fast paced life
how theres so much to do
and how theres so little time
but
if
you
stop
for a second and
feel
the sunlight
listen
to the birds and
watch
the wind blow
youll see that things actually

lilt

quite manageably
and theres
all
the time
in the world

3

so your dog poops
and you try to do the right thing
by cleaning it up
but
it smears
and gets all over
leaving a much bigger mess

and thats how things are
sometimes

First published in Fwd: Museums, Summer 2017

I put the world in a box,
A box an inch or two around.
Inside I put the people
And the rivers and the towns.

I look into this box
When I feel the need
To see the things I’d like to see
And the things I’ve seen.

I set the box back on the shelf
Then I replace its lid.
And I can’t help myself but wonder
What sort of box I’m in.

Abstract. Community information is indispensable for modern life, but access to it remains challenging for many people. Historically, public libraries have been central in providing formal community information, but today such information provision is accomplished largely by informal networks of community service agencies. Thus, the role and the value of the public library in community information provision seem unclear. We find an analogy to this situation in design theorist Christopher Alexander’s conceptualization of planned versus natural cities, and we bring this to bear on an ongoing study of public library service provision to the urban poor. This work reveals implications and recommendations for the public library’s unfolding role in community information provision: public libraries may no longer be needed to provide formal community information, but they can engage as information shepherds with local community service agencies in informal community information provision.

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Abstract. The need for methodologically rigorous approaches to the study of human experience in LIS has emerged in recent years. Auto-hermeneutics is a research methodology that offers a systematic way to study one's own experiences. In LIS, auto-hermeneutics offers a way to approach emerging questions regarding information experience and allows researchers to explore yet-undocumented contexts, setting precedents for further work in these areas and ultimately widening our understanding of information. Auto-hermeneutics draws principles from autoethnography (perhaps the most well-known of automethodologies), self-study and systematic self-observation; prior studies of these types in LIS and allied fields are presented. A discussion of generalizability, validity and reliability in auto-hermeneutic research follows. Finally, an example of an auto-hermeneutic study conducted by the author is outlined for illustration.

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Abstract

Purpose: Self-documentation is an increasingly common phenomenon, but it is not yet well understood. This paper provides a philosophical framework for analyzing examples of self-documentation on the dimensions of ontology, epistemology and ethics.

Design/methodology/approach: The framework addresses these three major areas of philosophic thought by operationalizing insights from philosophy, chiefly the work of Martin Heidegger. Heidegger's concepts of authenticity and fallenness inform the poles of each dimension of the framework.

Findings: Ontologically, self-documentation may manifest as document (authentic) or data (fallen); epistemologically, as understanding (authentic) or idle curiosity (fallen); and ethically, as self-care (authentic) or diversion (fallen). These dimensions are presented separately but are understood to be intermingled.

Originality/value: This unified framework offers a lens for examining and comparing cases of self-documentation and self-documents. No such framework has previously been articulated, but given the ubiquity and growing importance of self-documentation, it is needed.

Keywords: self-tracking, autobiography, document, philosophy of information, phenomenology

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