Transcript Folktales and Facets OCLC/ALISE Research Grant Award Presentation Boston, MA : January 13, 2010 Prof.

Folktales and Facets
OCLC/ALISE Research Grant Award Presentation
Boston, MA : January 13, 2010
Prof. Kathryn La Barre
Prof. Carol L. Tilley
Presentation Overview
Why folktales? What do we hope to
accomplish? What are our methods?
Who are our users? What have
we learned from them so far?
What is our test collection? What
have we learned from it so far?
Why focus on folktales?
Folktales are complex information
resources.
Bibliographic records often omit
critical information.
Standard bibliographic tools are
often complex and out of date.
No single type of user is
predominant.
What do we hope to accomplish?
Next-generation catalog prototype
Enhanced record structure for
access to folktales
Special consideration to shared and
unique information-seeking tasks of
three groups of users: scholars,
practitioners, lay persons
Rigorous, systematic, and iterative
What are our methods?
• Task analysis
– Repertoire of techniques (Vakkari, 2003)
• Commonly associated with user-centered
interface design
• Also used to investigate information-seeking
processes
– Task is information-seeking activity necessary
to complete a goal.
• Facet analysis
– “Sorting of terms in a given field into
homogeneous mutually exclusive facets each
derived from the parent universe by a single
characteristic of division.” (Vickery, 1960).
– Steps:
• Define the subject field
• Examine materials that reflect user interests
• Develop a list of characteristics, concepts or
categories
• Sort these terms into facets
Who are our users?
• Four faculty members at GSLIS who
– Use the CCB’s folklore collection
– Teach in the area of youth-service
librarianship
– Are storytellers
• Examples of faculty members’
folklore-related scholarship
– Reviewing folktales adapted for children
– Editing collections of folktales for
publication
– Studying audience engagement at
storytelling performances
– Documenting literary transmission of
folktales
What have we learned from users so far?
Scholarly practices motivating
these users’ information-seeking
include creating, synthesizing, and
studying.
These users face obstacles in
information-seeking such as
translation (i.e. working across
boundaries).
They have clear ideas about what
features they would find useful in
bibliographic tools and records.
What is our test collection?
• Folklore and storytelling materials
from the CCB
– 1,200+ books published between 1880 2010
– Stratified (by decade of publication)
random sample (n = 100) of these books
were used for initial facet analysis
• KOHA includes
– Local records
– Library Thing for Libraries
What have we learned from the collection so far?
Key facets include agent, genre,
origin, documentation, and context.
Many of these facets are
supported, but not leveraged, by
existing record structures.
Our next steps include
Task
Conduct think-aloud tasks with scholars
Interview additional scholars and begin
interviews with practitioners
Facet
Conduct full facet analysis of classifications
and controlled vocabularies for folklore to
refine facets
Refine prototype record structure that
features task-focused facets
Presentations and papers to date
A Sense of Wonder: Enhancing Access to Folktales through Task and Facet Analysis.
Proceedings of the 2010 iConference.
New Models from Old Tools: Leveraging an Understanding of Information Tasks and Subject
Domain to Support Enhanced Discovery and Access to Folktales. (2010). In Paradigms and
Conceptual Systems in Knowledge Organization, Proceedings of the Eleventh International
Conference of the International Society for Knowledge Organization.
Facets, Search and Discovery in Next Generation Catalogs: Informing the Future by Revisiting
Past Understanding. (2010). In Paradigms and Conceptual Systems in Knowledge
Organization, Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference of the International Society
for Knowledge Organization.
Image Sources
Bayliss, C. K. A Treasury of
Eskimo Tales. Crowell, 1922.
http://www.bookaburra.com/
https://www.iupress.indiana.edu/
Supporting materials
Study Overview : Preliminary Facets in Folklore
•
Agent [may include: author/narrator, translator, adapter, editor/compiler, illustrator, etc.]
•
Area [of source] [of story]
•
Association [award] [aggregations of multiple stories] [related materials] [stylistic
dependencies] [source] [work]
•
Content [characters] [illustrations] [language] [mood] [moral] [motif] [narrative structure]
[story type]
•
Context [age of story] [audience] [function of story] [language of source] [manner of
dissemination] [style] [type of variant]
•
Documentation [external sources like bibliographies or indexes]
•
Genre [type of story]
•
Origin [cultural] [ethnic] [geographical] [theoretical] [of source]
•
Time [of source] [of story]
•
Transmission [oral] [print] [function]
•
Viewpoint [theoretical] [cultural] [ethnic]
Study Overview : Overview
• Phase One (Supported by OCLC/ALISE and ongoing)
– conducting task analyses of scholarly informants'
information seeking
– conducting facet analyses of the collection and common
access methods
– importing existing records into a KOHA implementation
– developing a prototype for the enhanced records.
• Phase Two (Practitioner informants)
• Phase Three (Lay informants)
Study Overview : Supporting Literature
• Kuhlthau (2005)
– Collaboration between researchers in informationseeking and user-centered systems design
– Persistence in the study of a problem
– Creation of conceptual frameworks in LIS
• On the Record (2008)
– Integration of user-contributed data
– Application of controlled subject vocabularies
– Study of bibliographic control
Study Overview : Limitations (Phase One)
• Scholar-informants are not typical folklore scholars
• Sample collection is comprised largely of folktales collected
and/or adapted for a juvenile audience
• Researchers and informants are colleagues
Study Overview : Task Analysis
• Repertoire of techniques (Vakkari, 2003)
– Commonly associated with user-centered interface design
– Also used to investigate information-seeking processes
• Task is information-seeking activity necessary to
complete a goal (cf. Xie, 2008).
Study Overview : Scholarly Practices in Folklore
•
•
•
•
•
•
Exploring (e.g. Reading tale collections for possible future uses; monitoring
websites or journals to stay current on scholarly issues pertaining to folktales)
Creating (e.g. Adapting a folktale for performance; designing a library program
based on a folktale)
Synthesizing (e.g. Reviewing a published adaptation of a folktale for a juvenile
audience; documenting the published variants of a particular tale; preparing
lecture notes and other instructional materials)
Studying (e.g. Conducting research on audiences’ responses to oral
performance; examining the relationship between women’s personal narratives
and folktales)
Collecting (e.g. Building a personal folktale library to support scholarship;
keeping notes about folktale variants to support scholarship)
Searching (e.g. Using a bibliographic tool to identify a variant; following cited
references to identify relevant information)
Study Overview : Facet Analysis
“Sorting of terms in a given field into homogeneous mutually
exclusive facets each derived from the parent universe by a
single characteristic of division.” (Vickery, 1960).
Steps:
Define the subject field
Examine materials that reflect user interests
Develop a list of characteristics, concepts or categories
Sort these terms into facets
Study Overview : Elements of Provisional Record
3
Responsibility
31
32
33
34
35
36
4
Place
41
42
43
7
Adaptor (MARC 245; MARC 700)
Illustrator (MARC 245; MARC 700)
Collector (MARC 245; MARC 700)
Narrator (MARC 245; MARC 511; MARC 700)
Translator (MARC 245; MARC 700)
Publisher (MARC 260)
Publication (MARC 260)
Origin (MARC 751)
Collection (MARC 751)
Subject
71
72
Topical (MARC 650)
Motif (MARC 654 – Source: Uther (2004) and similar indexes, text)
721
722
723
724
73
74
ActorType
ActorName
Items
Actions
Tale-Type (MARC 654 – Source: Uther (2004) and similar indexes, text)
Theme (MARC 654 – Source: Book reviews, publisher’s information)
Study Overview : Potential Applications
• Cultural heritage resources
– Archival materials
– Oral histories
– Museum artifacts
• Grey literature