Section Six

6.2 Dervin, B. (2003). Given a Context by Any Other Name: Methodological Tools for Taming the Unruly Beast. In B. Dervin & L. Foreman-Wenet (with E. Lauterbach) (Eds.). Sense-Making Methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin (p. 111-132). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

In this particular journal entry, I am going to attempt something different than the others. Previously, I have applied the selected readings either to my life as a library user or as a future librarian. Like I stated in the journal covering the Taljn et al. readings, I am not entirely sure what context is after reading the articles twice. I plan to attend office hours sometime within the next week to better address this issue.

My difficulties with the articles on context are related to the language used to explain it. From my perspective, I believe context to be an explanation of the unique situations that surround the person or topic discussed. This seems to be what the articles say as well; but as I stated in a previous journal entry, I do not feel that context would be as "hot" as it is if that is all there is to it. There is simply something about this subject that is not penetrating my skull. So as not to be without a journal entry, I have decided to relate an example that recently happened. While it does not depict library information behavior, it does showcase information behavior from my daily life.

For years my favorite band was the Smashing Pumpkins. One of my favorite videos released by them was for the song Tonight, Tonight. There was something about the art design that really captivated me. I have not seen the video in years, and stopped thinking about it except for rare instances when I hear the song on the radio. This weekend, I had the pleasure of reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret for my Materials for Children course and found myself strongly reminded of that music video. At the end, I found the book used the film maker Georges Milies' life loosely for inspiration. I researched a bit and found the main Milies movie the book discussed, A Trip to the Moon, on Youtube. After watching it I rewatched the Smashing Pumpkins video again.

This example is the best I have to express what little I understand of context. In the sixth grade, I did not have the full scope of what artistic decisions were made, but I appreciated the video anyway. Now that I have the historical context of the Milies film, I can see that the band chose to replicate his style in their video. With this new knowledge I am better able to understand the original intent than when I had never seen Milies' movie. Prior to this information, I found this music video to be one of the best artistic representations of music to be found on Mtv; but within this new framework, I only adore it more for the allusion to one of the founders of the movie industry. Which, considering that this music video is only possible because of these movie pioneers, this makes the video more of an homage to the previous tradition than simply an entertaining clip matched to music. Without the seeking this new information, my context and understanding would never have shifted.