Creativity, Discovery, and Research in the Library:

Supporting “Screwing Around”

Transforming Libraries, Transforming Research27 June 2014

Anna-Sophia Zingarelli-Sweet@aszingarelli

overview

• research and the MLIS student• “The Hermeneutics of Screwing Around”• three ways to reintroduce curiosity and

creativity– conceptualize browsing– build serendipity into research methods– support robust collaboration

research and the MLIS student

research methods requiredin about half of MLIS programs (Park 2003)

we enter the field with a feelingthat research is overwhelming

and that we have little to offer researchersexcept a list of databases and search tips

digital scholarship

“use of digital evidence and method,digital authoring,

digital curation and preservation,and digital use and reuse of

scholarship”

(Smith Rumsey 2011)

fromdigital knowledge

todigital knowing

Stephen Ramsay

“The Hermeneutics of Screwing Around;Or,

What Do You Do With A Million Books?”

http://www.playingwithhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/hermeneutics.pdf

that much information…exceeds our ability to create reliable

guides to it

two ways to handle information overload:

searchbrowsing

we think of the computer as a deviceThat has revolutionized search…

could we imagine a world in which“Here is an ordered list of the books

you should read”gives way to

“Here is what I found. What did you find?”

digital reading

Nina Clements,“Is Browsing Too Slow For Today’s

Users?”http://www.ebrowsing.org/blog/2014/4/1/is-browsing-too-slow-for-todays-

users

physical browsing takes time

students still crave a tactile approach

Is the digital necessarily opposedto the tactile, to browsing,

and to slowing down?

If “the medium is the message”then it matters how we conceptualize

and deploy digital media.

Anne Mangen

“Hypertext Fiction Reading:Haptics and Immersion”

Journal of Research in Reading 31:4 (2008)doi 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2008.00380.x

Columbia University Libraries

Serendip-o-matic

Feminist Scholars Digital Workshop