The WWW Cabinet of Curiosities: A Serendipitous Research Tool

Abstract

This paper proposes that the WWW is able to be fruitfully understood as a research tool when we utilise themetaphor of the cabinet of curiosities, the wunderkammer. It unpeels some of the research attributes of themetaphor as it reveals the multiplicity of connectivity on the web that provides serendipitous interactionsbetween unexpected materials thus bringing new ways of thinking about a given research topic.It explores howthe singular research journeys may express themselves so differently that they find a comfortable space for adefinition only within an academic cabinet of curiosities. Yet these differences are also made available throughutilising an academic search engine in the WWW because it doesn’t literally obey the instruction you have givenit. I give examples of methodologies and theories that I have found to be apposite for such serendipity. I showthat the narrative of the research journey is a significant contribution to knowledge through explicating asubjective academic narrative in an auto-ethnographic methodological framework.

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