1.
Creativity, Discovery, and Research
in the Library:
Supporting “Screwing Around”
Transforming Libraries, Transforming Research
27 June 2014
Anna-Sophia Zingarelli-Sweet
@aszingarelli

2.
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

3.
research and the MLIS student
research methods required
in about half of MLIS programs (Park 2003)
we enter the field with a feeling
that research is overwhelming
and that we have little to offer researchers
except a list of databases and search tips

4.
digital scholarship
“use of digital evidence and method,
digital authoring,
digital curation and preservation,
and digital use and reuse of scholarship”
(Smith Rumsey 2011)

5.
from
digital knowledge
to
digital knowing

6.
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

7.
that much information…
exceeds our ability to create reliable guides
to it
two ways to handle information overload:
search
browsing

8.
we think of the computer as a device
That 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?”

9.
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

10.
Is the digital necessarily opposed
to the tactile, to browsing,
and to slowing down?
If “the medium is the message”
then it matters how we conceptualize
and deploy digital media.

11.
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

12.
Columbia University Libraries

13.
Serendip-o-matic

14.
Feminist Scholars Digital Workshop