A 1/2 day Pre-Conference Workshop at the ASIS&T 2008 Annual Meeting
Sponsored by SIG-USE

Overview & Objectives | Intended Audience | Workshop Leaders | Agenda | References | For Participants

[back to Jenna Hartel's webpage]

 

 

Overview & Objectives

At “An Appetizing Start…” participants have the opportunity to kick-off the Annual Meeting with an unconventional fusion of academic research and an upbeat leisure subject. This ½ day workshop explores the nature of information in a leisure setting through a case study of the hobby of gourmet cooking. It draws upon interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks of leisure and the moderator’s recent dissertation fieldwork studying the interactions between gourmet cooks and their recipe and cookbook collections. The program is designed for scholars and students of information behavior as well as information scientists who are foodies [(foo-dee) n. a person keenly interested in food, esp. in eating or cooking]. A break at half-time allows group members a chance to peruse a collection of information-related culinary literature and to exchange favorite recipes. The session aims to offer significant insights into information phenomena in a context that is positive, dynamic, and fun [(fŭn) adj. amusing; enjoyable]. The objectives are summarized below:

  • To introduce theoretical frameworks from IS and Leisure Science that support the study of information in leisure contexts.
  • To survey the information phenomena within the hobby of gourmet cooking, namely: information activities, resources, systems, and structures.
  • To extend case-specific insights to broader concepts of IS and other leisure domains.
  • To bring together ASIST members with shared culinary interests; and to learn while having fun.



Intended Audience

It is anticipated that this workshop will draw a small but enthusiastic crowd. There is no maximum size; all skill levels are welcome. The event is geared for:

  • Scholars of information behavior, seeking, and use; especially those interested in everyday life contexts.
  • Theorists and methodologists of information science, particularly those with qualitative, naturalistic, or critical leanings.
  • Students seeking unconventional (leisure-related) dissertation or thesis topics.
  • Public librarians and information specialists serving leisure audiences.
  • Gourmet cooks or foodies in the field of IS.
  • Thrill-seekers, the curious, and anyone who wants to launch the Annual Meeting on a buoyant note.


Workshop Leaders

Jenna Hartel received a Doctorate of Philosophy in Information Studies from UCLA in 2007. Her research focuses on information in everyday life and leisure realms. Jenna’s dissertation was an ethnography that explored information in the hobby of gourmet cooking. She has published about leisure and culinary information in JASIS, Knowledge Organization, and Information Research; and is the author of the article “Leisure and Hobby Information and its User” for the forthcoming edition of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Jenna is an interdisciplinary scholar who collaborates with sociologists and leisure scientists. One of her goals is to bring popular and fun topics into the field of IS.

Robert A. Stebbins (special guest) received his Ph.D. in sociology in 1964 from the University of Minnesota, and today is Faculty Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is a leading teacher, writer, and theorist of leisure, and the architect of The Serious Leisure Perspective, the prevailing theoretical framework applied in the study of leisure. Dr. Stebbins has authored 31 monographs and more than 200 articles about leisure.


Workshop Agenda

Session 1: Welcome and Introduction (30 minutes, by Jenna Hartel)

The workshop leaders and participants will introduce themselves. The objectives of the day and the agenda, will be reviewed. Then, Dr. Hartel will locate the workshop topic and themes in the literature of IS, with attention to the specialty of information seeking and use.

Session 2: The Serious Leisure Perspective (30 minutes, by Robert A. Stebbins)

As background, Dr. Stebbins will introduce The Serious Leisure Perspective (Stebbins, 2007) an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for studying leisure. He will note how cooking can occur as different types of leisure, namely: casual, serious, or project-based; and explain the differences between the hobby of gourmet cooking and two other types of food-related activity: feeding work (daily subsistence cooking) and employment in the foodservice industry. Dr. Hartel will explain how these different culinary communities are domains that generate their own literatures and informational patterns (Hartel, 2003, 2005).

Session 3: Three Temporal Arcs in the Hobby of Gourmet Cooking (45 minutes, by Jenna Hartel)

Drawing from her original research (2006, 2007), Dr. Hartel will present a model of how gourmet cooking unfolds across time as three temporal arcs; each arc will be explicated as an informational context with distinct information phenomena. Dr. Stebbins will comment upon the core concept of the hobby career and the nature of a hobby core activity.

Break & Snack (30 minutes)

Participants can peruse an exhibit of academic and popular literature that relates to the topics of gourmet cooking and information. They can exchange favorite recipes (prior to the event, they will be invited to select a favorite recipe from their collection to share at the workshop). There will be information discussion about the workshop themes. A gourmet snack will be served.

Session 4: The Personal Culinary Library (60 minutes, by Jenna Hartel)

Drawing again from her original fieldwork, Dr. Hartel will describe the information resources and activities in gourmet cooking. She will report how gourmet cooks maintain personal culinary libraries (PCLs), survey the various types of PCLs (small, medium, and large), and profile two examples. Then, tapping Shera and Egan’s (1952) idea of a bibliographic pyramid, she will explain the distinct information structures that underlie the PCL: the motherlode, zones, recipe collections, and the binder.

Session 5: Conclusion (45 minutes, by Jenna Hartel and Robert A. Stebbins)

Together, Drs. Hartel and Stebbins will summarize concepts from the session and their relevance to the broader discipline of IS. They will revisit The Serious Leisure Perspective framework and discuss the potential to generalize findings beyond gourmet cooking. There will be time for Q & A and comments; participants will complete an evaluation form.

 


References

Hartel, J. (2003). The serious leisure frontier in library and information science: Hobby domains. Knowledge Organization, 30(3/4). 228-238.

Hartel, J. (2005). Serious leisure. In K. Fisher, S. Erdelez, & L. McKechnie (Eds.), Theories of information behavior: A researcher's guide (pp. 313-317). Medford, NJ: Information Today.

Hartel, J. (2006). Information activities and resources in an episode of gourmet cooking. Information Research, 12(1) paper 281. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/12-1/paper282.html]

Hartel, J. (2007). Information activities, resources, and spaces in the hobby of gourmet cooking. Dissertation from The University of California, Los Angeles.

Shera, J. & Egan, M. (1952). Foundations of a theory of bibliography, Library Quarterly, 22, 125-137.

Stebbins, R. A. (2007). Serious leisure: A Perspective for our time. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

 

Materials and Instructions for Participants

Details coming soon!