Behind the Closed Door: An Ethnographic Study of Information-Seeking Behaviour in a Closed Stack Media Library

Abstract

Through unobtrusive observation and participant interviews, the following ethnographic study seeks to discover the various sources of information used by patrons in order to borrow a video from the University of Toronto Libraries Media Commons. Drawing from a number of examples, the paper suggests that information-seeking is multifaceted, individualized, and often seemingly non-purposive in nature. Emphasis is placed on the use of conversation as a means for serendipitous discovery and information exchange. Building on this, it is argued that such conversations are not necessarily transactional in nature, but rather are used as a means to share information as well as foster connections.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 1 citations exist upstream.