Section Six

6.3 Talja, S., Keso, H., & Pietilaminen, T. (1999). Information Processing and Management, 35. (751-763).

Context is best understood through the time and space situations of the person or items discussed. This is further expounded throughout the article as the authors attempt to elucidate the reader with the metatheoretical context of context. The authors summarize a vast majority of current theory of context and attempt to depict what context is. They employ Behaviorist and Social construction models to supplement their argument.

The authors paint a convoluted image of context throughout the article. They even suggest early on that "there is no term more often used, less often defined and, when defined; defined so variously, as context" (p. 752). I found that to be rather true, as I am unable to properly comprehend exactly what context is after reading this article. I read this article (along with the Dervin article) before and after class and still find my understanding of this concept to be lacking. I would hope with the amount of pages written on this subject it is more substantial than simply placing literature and people within their time-space situations that paint their understanding of the world. As of right now, that was all I was able to absorb from this article.

I have a problem with an article that uses slang terminology at the same time as being obnoxiously loquacious. Perhaps my problem with the fact that "context is hot" is found in both the abstract and the introduction lies within my own context of the word hot. As an American with an unfortunately large knowledge base of popular culture, I am aware of the fact that Paris Hilton uses the phrase "that's hot" more times that I would care to count. It is rumored that she even attempted to have the phrase copyrighted, thereby attempting to control all contexts of the execution of it. I am having a bit of cognitive dissonance, therefore, trying to take an article seriously that describes something as hot. The fact that, in my opinion, it spends pages of pages saying very little in an extremely large amount of words makes it worse.

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.