NCompass Live: Narrating the OPAC: How Can Storytelling and Narrative Analysis Improve the...

NARRATING THE OPAC: How Can Storytelling and Narrative Analysis Improve the User-Friendliness of the

Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC)

Presented by:

Mark-Shane Scale

PhD Candidate

University of Western Ontario,

Canada

mscale@bell.net

1

Introduction:

Libraries and librarians have many stories to

tell.

Main goals are to:

Change how we think about the OPAC

Get us to see how we can narrate our

collections through the OPAC

Get us to see how we can apply

storytelling to our library communication

Goals for this presentation

2

My premise:

While new media & technologies create new forms of storytelling, ancient storytelling practices can and are impacting the design and development of new technologies.

3

Where

organizations are

now creating

online narratives

and engaging in

online storytelling

4

Question is:

Can the same

principles be applied

to informing the

design of the library‟s

OPAC?

The OPAC:

• Resource discovery tool

• Tells a narrative about human knowledge

• A narrative of the knowledge accessible

through the library

5

Literature

Various works indicate how

storytelling and narrative

can be applied to

technology for the purposes

of information provision.

(Powell, 1999; Kendall & Losee,

1986; Domokos, 2007)

Storytelling genres of science

fiction, folklore and

mythology (including Old

Testament) has impacted

the development of new

technologies

(Laurel, 2001; Weizenbaum,

1976)

6

LIS literature on narratives and stories

Bates (2005) online databases not

designed based on how people

actually conduct searches.

People pick up fragments of

information from various sources and

constructs a final story to organize the

bits of information (Orr, 1996)

Also use personal experience

(Schank, 1999; Orr, 1996)

Dervin‟s sense-making metaphor

includes narratives and stories as

means by which people reduce

uncertainty and bridge information

gaps.

Exchange of information often

accompanied by the exchange of

stories (Orr, 1996; Fisher, 2005)

Berrypicking Sense-Making

The Bricolage Information grounds

7

Literature on stories

Stories in learning

The way people approach new

knowledge acquisition is through the

reliance on stories from others

(experts) combined with their own

experience in order to learn

something new (Kolodner, 1997;

Schank, 1999)

Organizational storytelling

Boje‟s (2008) definition of stories –

more than one voices

Gabriel (2000) – stories are wish-

fulfilling fantasies between fiction and

reality

Reality based, but not necessarily

truth/fact

Artful manipulation of facts

8

Metaphor for the

OPACFollowing Laurel (1993) and Fisher (2005),

rather than perceiving the OPAC as a tool

for resource discovery, let us conceptualize

the OPAC as

a medium facilitating storytelling about

humanity‟s knowledge as well as

A medium facilitating resource discovery.

Laurel (1993) critiques the

metaphors of the computer as a

tool, and proposes instead the

metaphor of the computer as

medium.

Fisher‟s idea of information

grounds: liminal space for

exchange of stories as well as

information

9

Technology Prototypes for storytelling

First person (journalistic) narratives (Miller, 2008)

Video performance

Text and images (usually photographs)

Timeline approaches (beginning, middle and end)

10

Laurel, 1993

prototype:

Fictional personal

storytelling demonstrates the feasibility of using fictional

characters to provide access to non-fiction

information sources.

features 3 agent characters/guides that

provide multimedia access and narrative

approach to navigating information in a

database.

the 3 agent characters or guides embodied 3

alternative perspectives about various topics

in American history: a frontiersman, a Native

American and a settler woman.

11

Laurel, 1993

prototype:

Fictional personal

storytelling

These agents are

designed based first person narrative account

of incidents and topics related to the

westward expansion in America.

cast as anthropomorphic storytellers

performing stories in video format.

characters represent and provide context to

information sources in the database.

Sources of these accounts are derived from

diaries and journals of real historical persons that

experienced the expansion.

12

Laurel, 1993

prototype:

Fictional personal

storytelling

Credibility of the agent performers established

through a video segment

introducing themselves,

describing their real-life professions and

the source materials used and lessons learned.

This establishes the agents as storytellers rather

than fictitious characters, thereby reinforcing their

credibility.

13

Laurel, 1993

prototype:

Fictional personal

storytelling

The agents

represent varied point of views allowing for

multiple representations of events and

knowledge,

give the user various perspectives from which

to explore the content and the knowledge in

the knowledgebase.

This approach is natural in that in the real world

human beings do not “navigate to” information,

but rather experience information coming to

them from a variety of sources (page 183).

14

Lombardo &

Damiano‟s (2012)

Cultural heritage

spider tour guide

Carletto: a fictional Italian anthropomorphic spider, acting as a

virtual guide to a historical site.

• Designed for mobile devices

• Virtual representative of the

interface of the application using

storytelling to guide visitors touring

an old Italian palace.

• is the single-character narrator

performing dramatically, communicating

factual and fictional information

about places and objects within the

site.

15

Lombardo &

Damiano‟s (2012)

Cultural heritage

spider tour guide

Carletto:

• produces mobile dramatic performance

on the handheld devices of users, alternating between information

provision of facts and anecdotes that

actually occurred in the space with

fictional experiences.

• professionally guides the visitor by discussing and formally describing

rooms, their functions, historic events and

the artistic features and objects in the

room.

• Template or script-based storytelling approach that responds to visitors

movement

16

Lombardo &

Damiano‟s (2012)

Cultural heritage

spider tour guide

With Carletto,

• fictional world is superimposed on to

the real world.

• follows the visitor by a webcam, by

which he can give contextually

relevant information to the current

room in which the visitor occupies.

augmented reality?

User‟s presence in

a room is input to

Cartello to provide

information on the

location.

17

Carletto

Not all information is

provided at once.

Some retained, in case

the user later returns to

the room.

Developers use

ontological

approach to

fragment the

communicative

knowledge into

units from the

most general to

specific.

Carletto reacts to users‟

location on the mobile

screen through

annotated scripts.

18

What can we learn from the

literature?

The idea of representing viewpoints in information sources

(Laurel, 1993)

Non-fiction information can be presented by imposing and combining

fictional representation with real world factual information (Laurel, 1993;

Lombardo

Such an effort can create an unforgettable experience for those who also

access the information.

(Laurel, 1993; Lombardo & Damiano, 2012)

19

Method:

1st narrative:

fictional – based on imagination about how the world should be (similar to philosophy‟s thought experiment?)

Sense-making of future possibilities using historical advances

2nd narrative:

created from dialogue with artificial intelligent conversational agent, modifying the agent‟s response to more interesting and relevant responses.

Sense-making of the present (about how the world currently operates & problems)

One query

2 narratives

(real &

fictional)

find information resources on restaurants20

Fictional story

In a parallel universe, John, a designer, steps into the virtual public library

to use its online catalogue to search for information resources on

restaurants.

21

The query

He types into the search box and launches into his search

22

The results in the fictional world

On analysis, he realizes that the library‟s catalogue retrieves 3 categories of

results

1. Non-fiction sources

2. Life-writing sources – autobiographies, memoirs of restaurant founders and workers

3. Fiction – stories with restaurant settings

23

Under non-fiction results, John sees the

following:

Magazines and Newspaper articles:

Reviews of restaurants

News features on restaurants

Books:

Hospitality industry textbooks

Food and beverage service text books

Scholarly journal articles

Operating and managing restaurants

Studies, issues and problems in restaurant management

24

Under life-writing results, John sees the

following:

Memoirs, autobiographies or biographies of:

Restaurant founders or owners

Employees /former employees

Books, newspaper and magazine articles:

Company documents and publications from

Restaurants

Industry and trade associations for restaurant service providers

Institutions and agencies that monitor restaurants

25

Analysis of the results that John sees:

Nonfiction Magazines and Newspaper articles:

Reviews of restaurants

News features on restaurants

Books:

Hospitality industry textbooks

Food and beverage service text books

Scholarly journal articles

Operating and managing restaurants

Studies, issues and problems in restaurant management

Life-writing

Memoirs, autobiographies or biographies of:

Restaurant founders or owners

Employees /former employees

Books, newspaper and magazine articles:

Company documents and publications from

Restaurants

Industry and trade associations for restaurant service providers

Institutions and agencies that monitor restaurants

26

Analysis of the results that John sees:

Nonfiction Magazines and Newspaper articles:

Reviews of restaurants

News features on restaurants

Books:

Hospitality industry textbooks

Food and beverage service text books

Scholarly journal articles

Operating and managing restaurants

Studies, issues and problems in restaurant management

Life-writing

Memoirs, autobiographies or biographies of:

Restaurant founders or owners

Employees /former employees

Books, newspaper and magazine articles:

Company documents and publications from

Restaurants

Industry and trade associations for restaurant service providers

Institutions and agencies that monitor restaurants

27

So what if we tried Laurel‟s approach

to presenting such results

J. McDonnel, a journalist from

the Public library press.

Hi, I am J. McDonnel, a journalist from the Public library press. I have a number of media articles on restaurants to bring to your attention.

Breaking news on the trends in the restaurant industry

Reviews and reports of restaurants

Special news features on restaurants

28

So what if we tried Laurel‟s approach

to presenting such results

J. McDonnel, a professor at the

Public Library school of

hospitalityHi, I am Prof. J. McDonnel, a professor at the Public Library school of hospitality. I have a number of research articles and monographs on restaurants to bring to your attention.

For an overview of the basics see:

Hospitality industry textbooks

Food and beverage service text books

For more current research, check out these databases

29

So what if we tried Laurel‟s approach

to presenting such results

J. Chin, restaurant ownerHi, I am J. Chin, manager of family owned restaurant for a number of years. I want to bring to your attention a number of:

memoirs, autobiographies and biographies of:

Restaurant founders or owners

Employees /former employees

30

So what if we tried Laurel‟s approach

to presenting such results

Customer of restaurants

Hi, I am J. Fisher, and I have been a customer of restaurants for years. I want to bring to your attention these:

Reviews of restaurants

Tips on etiquette

Tips for eating out at restaurants

Consumer guides

31

Practical application of results page

Potential solution: Facebook‟s principle of:

“View as specific person”

32

Narrative 2:

Actual search in the real world

Let me tell you about what happened to me the other day when I was searching the library catalogue of the London Public library

No, not that London. London

in Canada.

I hear that England is a

great place.

I‟m sorry. First thing that

comes to mind when I

think London is England

with tea and scones.

33

Narrative 2:

Actual search in the real world

Anyway… The other day I experimented

with the library's online catalogue, and

typed in restaurants. And in my analysis of

the results, I noticed that the first

assumption of the system is that the user

wants non-fiction information.

34

Books are listed first

and then articles.

Isn‟t that something you

would expect

35

But a person using the

library catalogue may

not want to see non-

fiction first.

To be fair, I also

noticed that to the

side, one can select

format –

Fiction, picture

book, DVD etc. But still

that might not be

sufficient.

I‟m quite sure that the

system provides some

way of filtering the

results so that you can

find just fiction

36

I checked out the non-fiction section for a life-writing source,

and curiously noted the title:

So I checked it out on Amazon to

see what it was about as well as

any reviews on the book.

37

Here is what I found based on

Amazon‟s book description:

Temporarily putting aside his role as playwright, director,

and screen-writer, David Mamet digs deep and delivers

thirty outrageously diverse vignettes. On subjects

ranging from the vanishing American pool hall, family

vacations, and the art of being a b****, to the role of

today's actor, his celebrated contemporaries and

predecessors, and his undying commitment to the

theater, David Mamet's concise style, lean dialogue,

and gut-wrenching honesty give us a unique view of the

world as he sees it.

38

You see.

Titles are often misleading. The book

entitled Writing in restaurants by Mamet

has nothing to do with restaurants at all.

While the book is indeed non-fiction, it is

more life-writing or reality based, and

should not be confused in the non-fiction

information category.

39

Fiction results:

Next, I checked the fiction

category. Key to my observation

was whether or not I could find a

fictional work is set in a restaurant

setting. For this I saw a few results

that matched what I was

expecting to find

Like these 2 resources that

showcase fiction stories in

restaurant settings.

40

Fiction results:

So I clicked on the title: Simmer

down

And further found that the library

in its subject description has a

category for restaurants under

fiction.

I‟m not sure persons

would be looking for

fiction works based on

settings. I don‟t think that

would be a normal

expectation of any

fiction reader.

41

Fiction results:

Perhaps not, but, did you

also see that this fiction

book contains recipes?

Hmmm…I get you. So

people can get non-

fiction information out of

supposedly fiction books.

42

That‟s right!

But I still had some unanswered questions:

1. How do we observe reality-based writing

or more accurately life-writing set in a

restaurant setting?

2. What is provided by the system to facilitate

discovery of restaurant life-writing ?

Like what?

43

But I‟m sure that one

can modify the query

to get more specific

results.

In my view, there is no direct way provided

for the user to locate autobiographies and

memoirs of restaurant CEOs, owners or

employees in book formats if they do not

already know the titles or authors.

44

45

You are right. Indirectly, one can expand the

query term 'restaurant„, like including

„memoir‟ with it.

Summarizing

learning

Stories have representational

value, placing information in the

context of view points.

Storytelling also makes sharing and

accessing information an experience

46

Conclusion:WE CAN TELL STORIES ABOUT

OUR COLLECTIONS

47

4 Questions for the OPAC of the future

Can we

1. have fictional (imaginary), historical or even real characters as narrators

representing the perspective of information resources/knowledge available

through the library?

2. combine the time line view for browsing purposes or use a “view as”

interface to filter results?

3. base narrators on the demography of users, creating characters that are imagined experts or others that represent people that users would consult for

advice based on their task requirements?

4. represent dialogic voices, disagreement or disputes over knowledge

(neutrally) without taking sides and let the users decide which voice(s) to

listen to?

48

Other questions and issues:

Can such principles be used for our information literacy sessions and

training?

Once exposed, user may no longer need the storytelling tutorial or guide

to use the OPAC.

Should the OPAC storytelling be an opt-in or opt-out

experience, considering that some users are already experts and do need

guidance?

49

Comments, Criticisms and Queries

50

References

Bates, M. J. (2005). Berrypicking. In K. E. Fisher, S. Erdelez & L. McKechnie (Eds.), Theories of information behavior (pp. 58-62). Medford, N.J.: American Society for Information Science and Technology by Information Today.

Boje, D. M. (2008). Storytelling organizations. Los Angeles: Sage.

Dervin, B. (2005). What methodology does to theory: Sense-making methodology as exemplar. In K. E. Fisher, S. Erdelez & L. McKechnie(Eds.), Theories of information behavior (pp. 25-29). Medford, N.J.: Published for the American Society for Information Science and Technology by Information Today.

Domokos, Mariann. 2007. Folklore and mobile communication. Fabula 48, no. 1/2: 50-9.

Fisher, K. E. (2005). Information grounds. In K. E. Fisher, S. Erdelez & L. McKechnie (Eds.), Theories of information behavior (pp. 185-190). Medford, N.J.: American Society for Information Science and Technology by Information Today.

Gabriel, Y. (2000). Storytelling in organizations :Facts, fictions, and fantasies. Oxford ;; New York: Oxford University Press.

Kendall, K. E. & Losee, R. D. (1986). Information system FOLKLORE: A new technique for system documentation. Information & Management 10, no. 2: 103-11.

Kolodner, J. L. (1997). Educational implications of analogy: A view from case-based reasoning. American Psychologist, 52(1), 57-66. doi: 10.1037//0003-066X.52.1.57

Laurel, B. (2001). Utopian entrepreneur. A mediawork pamphlet. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Laurel, B. (1993). Computers as theatre. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.

Lombardo, V. & Damiano, R. (2012). Storytelling on mobile devices for cultural heritage. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 18, no. 1-2 (March-June 2012): 11-35.

Miller, C. H. (2008). Digital storytelling :A creator's guide to interactive entertainment (2nd ed.). Boston: Focal Press/Elsevier.

Orr, J. E. (1996). Talking about machines :An ethnography of a modern job. Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press.

51

References

Polletta, F., Chen, P. C. B., Gardner, B. G., & Motes, A. (2011). The sociology of storytelling. Annual Review of Sociology, 37, 109-130. doi: 10.1146/annurev-soc-081309-150106

Powell, Kevin. 1999. Structure versus context: Understanding the design and use of computer tools in social settings. Library Trends 47, no. 3 (Winter): 473-84.

Schank, Roger C. 1999. Dynamic memory revisited. 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sturm, Brian (2009). Storytelling. In Marcia J. Bates and Mary Niles Maack (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. 3rd edition. (pp. 5042-46). New York: Taylor & Francis.

Weizenbaum, J. (1976). Computer power and human reason: From judgement to calculation. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.

52

Presented by:

Mark-Shane Scale

PhD Candidate

University of Western Ontario,

Canada

mscale@bell.net