Folktales and FacetsOCLC/ALISE Research Grant Award PresentationBoston, MA : January 13, 2010

Prof. Kathryn La BarreProf. Carol L. Tilley

Why folktales? What do we hope to accomplish? What are our methods?

Who are our users? What have we learned from them so far?

What is our test collection? What have we learned from it so far?

Presentation Overview

Folktales are complex information resources.

Bibliographic records often omit critical information.

Standard bibliographic tools are often complex and out of date.

No single type of user is predominant.

Why focus on folktales?

What do we hope to accomplish?

Next-generation catalog prototype Enhanced record structure foraccess to folktales

Special consideration to shared and unique information-seeking tasks of three groups of users: scholars, practitioners, lay persons

Rigorous, systematic, and iterative

What are our methods?• Task analysis

– Repertoire of techniques (Vakkari, 2003)• Commonly associated with user-centered

interface design• Also used to investigate information-seeking

processes– Task is information-seeking activity necessary

to complete a goal.

• Facet analysis– “Sorting of terms in a given field into

homogeneous mutually exclusive facets each derived from the parent universe by a single characteristic of division.” (Vickery, 1960).

– Steps:• Define the subject field• Examine materials that reflect user interests• Develop a list of characteristics, concepts or

categories • Sort these terms into facets

Who are our users?

• Four faculty members at GSLIS who– Use the CCB’s folklore collection– Teach in the area of youth-service

librarianship– Are storytellers

• Examples of faculty members’ folklore-related scholarship– Reviewing folktales adapted for children– Editing collections of folktales for

publication– Studying audience engagement at

storytelling performances– Documenting literary transmission of

folktales

Scholarly practices motivating these users’ information-seeking include creating, synthesizing, and studying.

These users face obstacles in information-seeking such as translation (i.e. working across boundaries).

They have clear ideas about what features they would find useful in bibliographic tools and records.

What have we learned from users so far?

What is our test collection?

• Folklore and storytelling materials from the CCB – 1,200+ books published between 1880 -

2010– Stratified (by decade of publication)

random sample (n = 100) of these books were used for initial facet analysis

• KOHA includes– Local records– Library Thing for Libraries

Key facets include agent, genre, origin, documentation, and context.

Many of these facets are supported, but not leveraged, by existing record structures.

What have we learned from the collection so far?

Our next steps include

TaskConduct think-aloud tasks with scholars

Interview additional scholars and begin interviews with practitioners

FacetConduct full facet analysis of classifications and controlled vocabularies for folklore to refine facets

Refine prototype record structure that features task-focused facets

Image Sources

http://www.bookaburra.com/ https://www.iupress.indiana.edu/Bayliss, C. K. A Treasury of Eskimo Tales. Crowell, 1922.

Presentations and papers to date

A Sense of Wonder: Enhancing Access to Folktales through Task and Facet Analysis. Proceedings of the 2010 iConference.

New Models from Old Tools: Leveraging an Understanding of Information Tasks and Subject Domain to Support Enhanced Discovery and Access to Folktales. (2010). In Paradigms and Conceptual Systems in Knowledge Organization, Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference of the International Society for Knowledge Organization.

Facets, Search and Discovery in Next Generation Catalogs: Informing the Future by RevisitingPast Understanding. (2010). In Paradigms and Conceptual Systems in Knowledge Organization, Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference of the International Society for Knowledge Organization.

Supporting materials

Study Overview : Preliminary Facets in Folklore

• Agent [may include: author/narrator, translator, adapter, editor/compiler, illustrator, etc.]

• Area [of source] [of story]

• Association [award] [aggregations of multiple stories] [related materials] [stylistic dependencies] [source] [work]

• Content [characters] [illustrations] [language] [mood] [moral] [motif] [narrative structure] [story type]

• Context [age of story] [audience] [function of story] [language of source] [manner of dissemination] [style] [type of variant]

• Documentation [external sources like bibliographies or indexes]

• Genre [type of story]

• Origin [cultural] [ethnic] [geographical] [theoretical] [of source]

• Time [of source] [of story]

• Transmission [oral] [print] [function]

• Viewpoint [theoretical] [cultural] [ethnic]

Study Overview : Overview

• Phase One (Supported by OCLC/ALISE and ongoing)– conducting task analyses of scholarly informants'

information seeking– conducting facet analyses of the collection and common

access methods– importing existing records into a KOHA implementation– developing a prototype for the enhanced records.

• Phase Two (Practitioner informants)• Phase Three (Lay informants)

Study Overview : Supporting Literature

• Kuhlthau (2005)– Collaboration between researchers in information-

seeking and user-centered systems design– Persistence in the study of a problem– Creation of conceptual frameworks in LIS

• On the Record (2008)– Integration of user-contributed data– Application of controlled subject vocabularies– Study of bibliographic control

Study Overview : Limitations (Phase One)

• Scholar-informants are not typical folklore scholars• Sample collection is comprised largely of folktales collected

and/or adapted for a juvenile audience• Researchers and informants are colleagues

Study Overview : Task Analysis

• Repertoire of techniques (Vakkari, 2003)– Commonly associated with user-centered interface design

– Also used to investigate information-seeking processes

• Task is information-seeking activity necessary to complete a goal (cf. Xie, 2008).

Study Overview : Scholarly Practices in Folklore

• Exploring (e.g. Reading tale collections for possible future uses; monitoring websites or journals to stay current on scholarly issues pertaining to folktales)

• Creating (e.g. Adapting a folktale for performance; designing a library program based on a folktale)

• Synthesizing (e.g. Reviewing a published adaptation of a folktale for a juvenile audience; documenting the published variants of a particular tale; preparing lecture notes and other instructional materials)

• Studying (e.g. Conducting research on audiences’ responses to oral performance; examining the relationship between women’s personal narratives and folktales)

• Collecting (e.g. Building a personal folktale library to support scholarship; keeping notes about folktale variants to support scholarship)

• Searching (e.g. Using a bibliographic tool to identify a variant; following cited references to identify relevant information)

Study Overview : Facet Analysis

“Sorting of terms in a given field into homogeneous mutually exclusive facets each derived from the parent universe by a single characteristic of division.” (Vickery, 1960).

Steps:Define the subject field

Examine materials that reflect user interests

Develop a list of characteristics, concepts or categories

Sort these terms into facets

Study Overview : Elements of Provisional Record3 Responsibility

31 Adaptor (MARC 245; MARC 700)32 Illustrator (MARC 245; MARC 700)33 Collector (MARC 245; MARC 700)34 Narrator (MARC 245; MARC 511; MARC 700)35 Translator (MARC 245; MARC 700)36 Publisher (MARC 260)

4 Place41 Publication (MARC 260)42 Origin (MARC 751)43 Collection (MARC 751)

7 Subject71 Topical (MARC 650)72 Motif (MARC 654 – Source: Uther (2004) and similar indexes, text)

721 ActorType722 ActorName723 Items724 Actions

73 Tale-Type (MARC 654 – Source: Uther (2004) and similar indexes, text)74 Theme (MARC 654 – Source: Book reviews, publisher’s information)

Study Overview : Potential Applications

• Cultural heritage resources– Archival materials– Oral histories– Museum artifacts

• Grey literature