Designing the next big thing: Randomness vs. Serendipity

in DH tools

Kim Martin and Anabel Quan-Haase University of Western Ontario

On the need to slow down

Historicization

Contextualization

Computer Forensics

Media Archaeology

Research Questions

•  What do digital humanists require from an online information tool?

•  How do these scholars conceive of serendipity in the online environment?

•  Do the current DH tools for searching and browsing material meet the criteria required by these scholars?

Historians Serendipity in the Research Process

“I used to use the library a lot more, I think just when I was, you know you just find a shelf in the library and look around it and see what else is

there. I’ll still do that if I’m looking for something in particular”

- P20

Historian’s own words

“the pro of the physical

searching is the serendipity aspect of it..

where you go to the bookshelf

and use the other books that you might not have thought of as being useful”

“I don’t know how to describe this, but it… removed the serendipity factor. You can

browse online, but that’s always much

more targeted, sometimes, most of us are very happy to have that, sort of, inadvertent

discovery”

“I still tell my students that,

with all the online searches,

there’s still no substitute for going to the stacks and

looking through and seeing

what’s there”

Digital Humanists Serendipity via Social Media

“Sometimes new ideas will just find me. Sometimes its networking”

“And the most interesting stuff I’ve picked up in the past couple of years, are new things that I didn’t already know about that have come through Twitter.”

“You see the Tweet, you click the link, it opens in the browser. You have to… again it’s the push vs pull thing. You haven’t got to go and seek it out, it just comes your way.”

“But, yeah, I mean, I think you find information earlier than other people through Twitter.”

“one of my research projects started after a Twitter conversation.”

“because I’ve got a large network of followers um some of it, its, its quite serendipitous in that respect. Stuff that comes up is things that I would never normally come across or wanted to come across in my own research and searching. And it actually turns out to be incredibly useful.”

Modeling Serendipity

•  Facets of serendipity in everyday chance encounters

(Rubin, Burkell, & Quan-Haase, 2011)

•  Serendipitous information encountering

(Makri & Blandford, 2012)

•  Information encountering

(Erdelez, 2004)

Facets of Serendipity in Everyday Chance Encounters

Rubin, V. L., Burkell, J., & Quan-Haase, A. (2011). Facets of serendipity in everyday chance encounters: A grounded theory approach to blog analysis. Information Research. URL: http://informationr.net/ir/16-3/paper488.html

Makri, S., & Blandford, A. (2012). Coming across information serendipitously : Part 1 – A process model. To appear in Journal of Documentation, 1-18.

Serendipitous Information Encountering

Erdelez, S. (2004). Investigation of information encountering in the controlled research environment. Information Processing & Management, 40(6), 1013-1025. doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2004.02.002

Information Encountering

Model Comparison across Features

Findings: à Serendipitous environments are those that are: trigger-rich, enable connections, and lead to the unexpected.

à  the type of digital environment (e.g., database, social media site) may influence how frequently users perceive they experience serendipity in that environment.

McCay-Peet, L. (2013). Investigating work-related serendipity, what influences it, and how it may be facilitated in digital environments. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Retrieved from http://dalspace.library.dal.ca/handle/10222/42727

For serendipity to occur: Environment matters

Experiencing Serendipity

Number of Participants

Serendipity Tools Access Points and Programming for Chance

Noticing Stopping ✔ Examining ✔ Capturing ✔ Returning

“Because Serendip-o-matic asks sources to speak for themselves,

users can step back and discover connections

they never knew existed. The team worked to re-

create that moment when a friend

recommends an amazing book, or a

librarian suggests a new source. It’s not search,

it’s serendipity.”

- Serendip-o-matic design team

Noticing ✔ Stopping ✔ Examining ✔ Capturing ✔ Returning

Noticing ✔ Stopping ✔ Examining ✔ Capturing Returning

Noticing ✔ Stopping ✔ Examining ✔ Capturing Returning

Findings Knowing Where You’ve Been

Findings

Noticing Stopping Examining Capturing Returning

Serendip-o-matic

✓

✓

✓

Trove News Bot

✓

✓

✓

✓

Mechanical Curator

✓

✓

✓

DP.LA Bot ✓

✓

✓

Twitter

Evernote

Zotero GitHub

Voyant

Jstor

Digital Library Neatline

Omeka

Wordpress

Google

References CHMN. (2013). Serendip-o-matic: Let your sources surprise you. One Week | One Tool. Retrieved October 31, 2013, from serendip-o-matic.com/about Erdelez, Sanda. 2004. “Investigation of Information Encountering in the Controlled Research Environment.” Information Processing & Management 40 (6) (November): 1013–1025. doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2004.02.002. Makri, Stephann, and Ann Blandford. 2012. “Coming across Information Serendipitously – Part 1: A Process Model.” Journal of Documentation 68 (5): 684–705. McCay-Peet, L. (2013). Investigating work-related serendipity, what influences it, and how it may be facilitated in digital environments. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Retrieved from http://dalspace.library.dal.ca/handle/10222/42727 O’Steen, Ben (2013). Mechanical Curator. British Library Labs. http://mechanicalcurator.tumblr.com/ Rubin, V.L., J. Burkell, and Anabel Quan-Haase. 2011. “"Facets of Serendipity in Everyday Chance Encounters: A Grounded Theory Approach to Blog Analysis.” Information Research 16 (3). Samplereality. (2013). DPLABot. https://github.com/samplereality/DPLAbot July 11, 2013. Sherratt, T (2013) Trove News Bot. https://github.com/wragge/trovenewsbot Nov 3, 2013.