What the physical library can teach us about

the digital library

Sally Jo Cunningham
1
, Nicholas Vanderschantz
1
, Claire Timpany
1
, Annika Hinze
1
,
George Buchanan
2
, Nina Reeves
3



1
University of Waikato, New Zealand
2
City University London, UK
3
Middlesex University, UK
1
Our interests over the past decade
Physical interactions in physical document
collections (music, books)
Prefer naturalistic settings over artificial
environments
Initial approach: descriptive, as few pre-
conceived notions as possible
Goals: suggest further avenues for digital
collection support
Methods
Anonymous observations
CD shops
Libraries
Bookstores
Think-aloud protocols (accompanied
shopping / library visits)
Interviews
Focus groups

Shopping for music
4
What ordinary information behaviors
do people exhibit when interacting
with large collections of music?

Previous music behavior investigations
Anecdotal: people often can hum a few bars
of a song
Lab experiments:
Which part of a song do people remember?
What metadata do people remember?
How much of a song do people remember?
How accurately can we hum songs?
.
Music reference desk question logs


Method
Anonymous participant observations
NZ, UK CD shops (20+ hours)
NZ Libraries (4 hours)
Accompanied shopping (5)
NZ, UK Interviews (6)
UK focus groups (2 x 5 participants)
Browsing is a significant activity
Music shopping is shopping around, not shopping
for
Searching and browsing are often interleaved
Serendipity: in WWW music resources,
You also cant choose random CDs, which I suppose is the
advantage of shops as you can just search at random.
Browsing by genre
Genre is important, but problematic

I have trouble finding things sometimes, sometimes a
group or person can fit into more than one category
Pop music can be alternative or easy listening sometimes,
or hard rock, or rap, it can be any of those things.

Genre often described by intended use for music
(gym music, study music), by mood
(depressing, happy),

People find it easier to provide examples of a genre
than to define it: more like this

Text is important!
Known-item searches by metadata
With the usual problems:
I have a lot of trouble looking up a song and I dont know who
sang it.

Lyrics searching would help:
They really need to come up with a better way for people to look
up music if they know a few words of the song.

Text on CD spines for quick scanning:
Unfortunately theyre not in alphabetical order, so I have to go
through the whole damn thing.

Tracklists to confirm selection:
The titlesare they familiar to me, can I hear the song in my
head?

Text
What sort of additional metadata beyond performer,
title, date?

The lyricsdo they have the words to the song. Anything
biographical about the artist, what was inspirational to
him, when it was written, where it was recorded.

Basically the more information the better.
Music shopping is collaborative
Families, friends, romantic couples

Shopping for others, as gifts

Bonding: showing that we have similar tastes,
know each others needs
Music shopping is surprisingly visual
Cover art to locate, identify genre
Ill quite often spot something across the store and go ooh ooh
ooh.
To locate, identify particular CDs
Often I know what the album looks like from the TV ads.
As a clue to contents:
What would this sound like?
Tool for collaborative shopping
Have you seen this?

And the visual is attractive and adds to the
enjoyment of the experience!

Digital directions
Expanded metadata, text search for MIR
systems (integrated with Query By Humming)
Genres, mood are a continuing interest
Pay more attention to browsing!
MIR systems should be a pleasure to see,
browse, play in
This collaborative, social aspect is interesting

Children in the physical library
14
What do children do when they
interact with large physical document
collections?

Previous research primarily:
Small number of participants
Focused on fine-grained selection
activities
Choice between small number of books
Choice of book for school assignment
Mediated book selection
Log analysis of Childrens Digital Library
Method
Anonymous participant observation of children in
bookstores and public libraries
11 sessions, 14 hours total
Conducted during school holidays
Manual notes only
Shadowing exercises
7 children
Debriefings of parents

Adults and children have
different goals
Adult Child
Acquire interesting books to
read at home
Have fun
Locate books within the
(known) time limit
Have fun until parents drag
them away
Stay within upper limit on
(known) number of selections
What, theres a limit???
Fun in a library /bookstore
can distract from reading
For the digital library: resist gratuitous
animations, games, activities
But kids do want to interact with the
ideas in the books
Rose as a ballerina, like the one in her book
Its not all about the books: having fun with
family and friends
Showing off interesting finds
Reading to each other
Reading side by side
Getting book advice
Giving book advice (even
better!)
Rejecting book advice (best!)
Why is the DL model of a solitary, isolated user?
Father: How about this
one, its about J ustin
Bieber.
Daughter (approx. 11):
I said I wanted a good
book.

Parents are kids DL users too
Parents act as gatekeepers, rejecting
Books that are too adult
Books that are too young
Books that are just gross

Parents want reassurance over the quality and
appropriateness of collection
One parent characterized an online library as scary. Who
knows what books are there, if they're appropriate, if there's
been a virus and now it has porn? There's no librarian.
There's no trust.

But kids want (some) independence
Setting: the newspapers and magazines section of a bookstore.
Mom is browsing at magazine rack. Her son, about five years old,
comes over with five books that hes picked from the childrens
section. Mom reminds him that he can only have one. He spreads
the books out on a nearby table. He thinks and thinks, finally culls
the choices down to two, but still cant make up his mind.
Boy: Mom, which one should I buy? Which one do you like? Which
one should I get?
Mom: You buy the one you want, that you like.
Boy: No, you tell me.
Mom: Well, I think you should buy this one [points at one of the
two books].
Boy: I hate that book.
Browsing is based on visual, spatial
characteristics
Cover, spine as clues to content
Cover most important to youngest kids
Browsing by interesting sections of books
Browsing is blazingly fast!
But changes in layout, book ordering cause
confusion

Aisha, age 6, tries to show
the me her favorite books
in a local bookstore: I want
to show you something
oh, they change things
every week! Everythings
such a bumble now, I cant
find anything.
What next?
Focus on the choice: what prompts a child to
pick a particular book?
What do children understand about the contents
of a book, based on its physical aspects?
How do children manage their books at home?
How do children act in the digital library and
bookstore?


Social information behaviour
in bookshops
25
We see a lot of groups of people!
What are they doing collaboratively,
socially?

Related work
Collaborative Information behaviour
Use of books [Bohley, 2011, Bryant et al]
Use of ebooks [Pearson et al, 2012]
Information use in a group [Reddy et al 2008,
Sonnonwald et al 2000]]
Librarian/Patron [Procter et al, 1998]
Childrens collaboration [Cunningham, 2011]

26
Book-based social networking
Sharing: librarything.com,
goodreads.com, shelfari.com
eReader: kindle,inkling, kobo
post-purchase / post-loan activities
No research
very scant knowledge
about book selection
in group context
Social presence
Shared space and
awareness
Ambient awareness
Observations
anonymous observations in 5 shops




activities of groups of two or more customers
96 people in 42 groups


27
A
Upscale
second hand
NZ
B
Research
university
NZ
C
Large chain

NZ
D
Specialist art
& architecture
NZ
E
Large chain

USA
35 3 1 2 1
?
Observations
Children:
six parent/child groups
(total nine children)
28
female
25%
mixed
67%
male
5%
?
3%
Age:
Gender:
3 Patterns: macro-level
Social
interaction



Collaborative
search






Independent
search


3 Patterns: macro-level
Social
interaction

o chatting
o waiting for
friend
o passing time
o dating

while browsing
for and
sampling books


G7: two customers told each other about their
countries of origin using travel books as props.

o getting to know each other
o books as tools to facilitate the conversation
G4: young couple looking though display book "The
Batman Films" on the sofa
o pointing to images
o page-by-page exploring
o reading aloud + explanation

seemed to be a means of him introducing her to an
interest of his (Batman movies).

3 Patterns: macro-level
Collaborative
search

shared
information
need

helping
someone
to search


G6: couple searched
together for books.

o both search
o meet with their books
o compare side-by-side
o turn pages together
o compare indexes
o read out loud
o compare content
G23: use of cover design to
identify a familiar book.
o pointing, flipping
o turning pages together
o reviewing book visually
o often accompanied by
verbal and nonverbal cues

3 Patterns: macro-level
Independent
search

independent
search

individual
motivations

occasionally
sharing their finds

G8: 2 women with independent search goals

o 1
st
:"I'm gonna run around this corner and try to find
the book I want, it's a book about cooking for a baby"
o Running commentary by searcher
o 2
nd
woman reads text messages, then looks for books
o show books to each other
o shared experience: social gathering + searching for
specific material
o groups, pairs, families
o verbal and nonverbal communication with
synchronous and asynchronous interactions
3 Patterns: macro-level
Social
interaction

o chatting
o waiting for
friend
o passing time
o Dating
while browsing
for and
sampling books


Collaborative
search

shared
information
need

helping
someone
to search



Independent
search

individual
motivations

independent
search

occasionally
sharing their finds

24 8
11
Sharing Behaviours: micro level

34
verbal
non-verbal
Typical pattern:
o come in together & go to shelves
o one person drifts to near-by section
o other browses and then catches up

Interaction in subtle physical cues in
facial expression and body language
Bookshop as a social space
Both socialising & locating information

Book shop: aspects of stores & libraries (but
free-er)



Bookshop: backdrop for talking about
personal matters (with books as props).
36
G34: Mum starts dancing and gets Daughter to dance,
and they dance to the middle of the shop.
G7: introduced themselves to each other using books of
their home countries (this is called 90 mile beach,
So here is the central part of Bangkok).
New Requirements for DL

Cater for both task-oriented and serendipitous
information searching behaviours.
Observations from libraries see [Twidale et al, 1997]


Support intuitive and light-weight sharing that is
not co-located and potentially asynchronous
Some similarity to sharing behaviour in co-reading
(typically co-located and synchronous) [Pearson et al, 2012]

37
New Requirements for DL

light-weight support for informal, transitory
and fluent behaviours based on implicit
understanding
Compared to formal work groups w/ heavy-weight
interaction
understandings of each others objectives less formed
& less consequential and across short time-spans
motivations and goals may change frequently
mutual understanding of interest and tastes are
grounded in shared social and personal backgrounds

38
New Requirements for DL

DL as third place?
a place of refuge other than the home or workplace where people
can regularly visit and commune with friends, neighbours, co-
workers, and even strangers [Metha 2010]

"mega-bookstores" are deliberate, not accidental, social spaces ,
[Trager, 2005]
shop D was a "mega-bookstore" but social interactions occurred in all
observed shops w/o being designed to facilitate this behaviour.
Observed bookshops as third places
G36: Dad called "Come on you lot, we're coming back tomorrow"


39
Thank you for your attention.

Suggestions or Questions?

Sally Jo Cunningham
sallyjo@waikato.ac.nz