"Giving Thanks to Information Behaviour"
These are the original assignment instructions provided to students of the course INF1323: The Information Experience, leading to this website and its Gallery. Instructors are invited to borrow this assignment and adapt it to their own course and discipline.
This assignment entails multiple outputs and several steps, so read these instructions carefully and begin a few weeks before it is due. In a nutshell, you are to write a sincere letter of gratitude (a "thank you note") of 150-200 words to a scholar of information behaviour. This project does not require extensive background research, but your expression of gratitude should be informed by a working knowledge of at least one piece of research by the chosen scholar. The letter is to then be hand-written onto a conventional paper thank you card of your choice, which will be mailed to the recipient, if you feel comfortable doing so (mailing is not required). Before mailing, a key deliverable is to create an artful photograph of your card (inside and outside) and an audio recording in which you read your message out loud. If you wish, these multimedia artifacts will be added to the online Gallery of Information Behaviour Gratitude, as a means to increase visibility to worthy research and as a positive resource for other information behaviour educators, students, and scholars.
Objectives of the Assignment
- To discover and engage an information behaviour scholar whose work is personally meaningful to you;
- To recognize information behaviour contributors and topics that are worthy of more attention, bringing greater depth, breadth, and diversity to the field and literature;
- To practice writing a conventional, professional letter of thanks and appreciation;
- To gain technical skills in digital photography and audio production;
- To uplift the information behaviour scholar whose work is featured;
- To experience the individual and social benefits of gratitude.
About the Recipients
Through this assignment, we want to recognize scholars that are working outside the long-standing emphasis on information behaviour in academic and professional contexts and look instead to scholars and research topics on the margins, interstices, or frontiers. Your recipient’s research should broaden the field of information behaviour either through studying the information behaviour of marginalized communities or through applying information behaviour concepts to new and exploratory contexts. In defining your recipient, ask questions like: How does your chosen scholar apply the cornerstone concepts that we’ve studied in this course to new, exciting, or unexpected settings and populations? How might their research address a gap in social inequalities? Why are you grateful for the work they have done or the paper(s) they have written? You may feel it relevant to consider the current moment in time, which is heavy with reactions to long-standing systemic racism, a global pandemic, population diaspora, and polarizing politics, when making your selection.
Selecting a Recipient
There are two potential ways to select a recipient.
Option 1: Using the Giving Thanks to... List of Authors/Papers
We have provided a list of possible authors/papers; these works fit the characterization above and have been published in the last five years. The list identifies the author(s), publication year, and title (with hyperlink access) as points of reference and departure. Scanning the titles on the list is the best way to discover a recipient of interest to you.
Option 2: Conducting Your Own Research to Find a Recipient
Alternatively, you may conduct independent secondary research in the literature of Library and Information Science to find a recipient. Do not underestimate the breadth of research out there. Go ahead and look around! (For instance, did you know there is information behaviour research on rubber duck collectors?)
A great starting point for LIS research is our fields’ article databases, such as Library & Information Science Abstracts (LISA) and Library Literature & Information Science Fulltext (EBSCO/H. W. Wilson). For this assignment, your journal article must be drawn from a journal within LIS and the article itself must be about information behaviour or practice, not related concepts such as learning or decision-making. It is helpful to define your search terms and ruminate on a few different ways to word them to cast a wider research net. For example, if you’re researching the information behaviour of gourmet cooks, you might work with search terms such as “information behaviour,” / “information activities,” AND “gourmet cook,” / “chef.” Think about what is most essential to you in your research and consider different words a scholar may have used to represent those essential elements. It is also important to define the temporal boundaries of your searching. The last 5 years is usually a good window to capture a rich picture of the current moment of the field’s scholarly research on your topic. You may wish to expand, or limit, the time frame depending on the nature of your topic. Please be certain you are searching in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals with full-text access.
Option 1: Using the Giving Thanks to... List of Authors/Papers
We have provided a list of possible authors/papers; these works fit the characterization above and have been published in the last five years. The list identifies the author(s), publication year, and title (with hyperlink access) as points of reference and departure. Scanning the titles on the list is the best way to discover a recipient of interest to you.
Option 2: Conducting Your Own Research to Find a Recipient
Alternatively, you may conduct independent secondary research in the literature of Library and Information Science to find a recipient. Do not underestimate the breadth of research out there. Go ahead and look around! (For instance, did you know there is information behaviour research on rubber duck collectors?)
A great starting point for LIS research is our fields’ article databases, such as Library & Information Science Abstracts (LISA) and Library Literature & Information Science Fulltext (EBSCO/H. W. Wilson). For this assignment, your journal article must be drawn from a journal within LIS and the article itself must be about information behaviour or practice, not related concepts such as learning or decision-making. It is helpful to define your search terms and ruminate on a few different ways to word them to cast a wider research net. For example, if you’re researching the information behaviour of gourmet cooks, you might work with search terms such as “information behaviour,” / “information activities,” AND “gourmet cook,” / “chef.” Think about what is most essential to you in your research and consider different words a scholar may have used to represent those essential elements. It is also important to define the temporal boundaries of your searching. The last 5 years is usually a good window to capture a rich picture of the current moment of the field’s scholarly research on your topic. You may wish to expand, or limit, the time frame depending on the nature of your topic. Please be certain you are searching in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals with full-text access.
Choosing a Thank You Card
Choose a real, paper thank you card with an envelope. These are available in Toronto at Dollarama for $1.00 or for more at Shopper's Drug Mart. Alternatively, you may use a note from your own stationery collection, or even make a card from scratch if you are so inclined. We recommend your card be blank inside to leave room for the message you write. Though digital graphic design programs are popular for constructing thank you notes, please utilize the primitive (but effective and artful) technology of pen, paper, and hand-writing. Select a card that appeals to you or even captures some thematic aspect of your scholar's work. For example, a card to Marcia Bates (whose work is canonical, though) might feature berries, invoking her information behaviour model of berrypicking.
Writing the Letter of Gratitude (A Template)
Before writing, via secondary research gain a general understanding of your scholar's identity, career history, and contribution(s) to information behaviour scholarship. It makes sense to look at their website, biography, CV, and/or list of publications. Through background research and personal reflection be able to state the specific aspects of their work that you appreciate; a precise articulation of their contribution is key to the assignment. The template below is a guide; however, unique approaches and expressions are welcomed.
- Opening salutation
- Introduce yourself
- Express gratitude
- Delineate specific qualities of your chosen scholar's work that make a positive impression upon you. Be sure to refer to their ideas with the right terminology. Stay mindful of a dual purpose to uplift them, while also educating others who may read your message (in the online exhibition) hence a grateful but teacherly tone is ideal.
- Share the positive impact(s) their contribution has upon you and/or others.
- Closing statement
- Your signature
- Post script (optional), perhaps something memorable and extra!
- The Gratitude Resources section of the project website has additional ideas for expressing appreciation and gratitude.
The Deliverables
The original paper card is meant to move on in the world, and we do hope you will send it to its recipient, who will likely be delighted. It is usually easy to find a scholar's mailing address on the web via Google or another search engine. However, given that such expressions of thanks are highly personal, it is not required to mail the thank you card.
Otherwise, there are two deliverables. The first is evidence of the card, in the form of two images: one of the inside and another of the outside of the card. To that end, you may use a smartphone, digital camera, or scanner. Photos should be clear and focused on the card and its contents. While photos (or scans) can be colour or black and white, please avoid excessive processing or filters, which may distract from the card itself. Files should be between 800 Kb and 2 Mb. These are to be uploaded to Quercus by the deadline.
The second deliverable is an audio recording of you reading the message, also due at the assignment deadline. Your audio recording does not have to be sophisticated. Your laptop, smartphone, or tablet likely has the capability you need to produce a clear recording of your voice. The free online voice recorder, Vocaroo, is also recommended. If you live somewhere noisy, one way to reduce background noise is to record yourself from under your blanket (drape it over your head like a tent) or a closet full of clothes. To avoid editing your audio, try to record your letter in one take. If you decide to edit your audio, do not add background music or sound effects. Your recording should be of your voice only. Audio should be in a standard format such as MP3.
As stated above, "If you wish, these multimedia artifacts will be added to the online Gallery of Information Behaviour Gratitude as a means to increase visibility to worthy research and as a positive resource for other information behaviour educators, students, and scholars." If you agree to have your work included in the Gallery--thank you!--please also submit the Consent Form.
Otherwise, there are two deliverables. The first is evidence of the card, in the form of two images: one of the inside and another of the outside of the card. To that end, you may use a smartphone, digital camera, or scanner. Photos should be clear and focused on the card and its contents. While photos (or scans) can be colour or black and white, please avoid excessive processing or filters, which may distract from the card itself. Files should be between 800 Kb and 2 Mb. These are to be uploaded to Quercus by the deadline.
The second deliverable is an audio recording of you reading the message, also due at the assignment deadline. Your audio recording does not have to be sophisticated. Your laptop, smartphone, or tablet likely has the capability you need to produce a clear recording of your voice. The free online voice recorder, Vocaroo, is also recommended. If you live somewhere noisy, one way to reduce background noise is to record yourself from under your blanket (drape it over your head like a tent) or a closet full of clothes. To avoid editing your audio, try to record your letter in one take. If you decide to edit your audio, do not add background music or sound effects. Your recording should be of your voice only. Audio should be in a standard format such as MP3.
As stated above, "If you wish, these multimedia artifacts will be added to the online Gallery of Information Behaviour Gratitude as a means to increase visibility to worthy research and as a positive resource for other information behaviour educators, students, and scholars." If you agree to have your work included in the Gallery--thank you!--please also submit the Consent Form.
Evaluation Criteria
The assignment is graded as complete or incomplete. A complete assignment consists of a thank you card with hand-written message (mailed and not submitted); two photographs of your thank you card (inside and outside); and an audio recording of its message. The message should express gratitude and an accurate understanding of the scholar's contribution to information behaviour research. Of note, everyone is invited to post their work in the online public gallery, but posting is not required for a complete assignment.