This presentation investigates how narrative and storytelling principles can be applied to library online information retrieval technologies, and in particular to affecting the design of the library’s online public access catalogue (OPAC). Compelling evidence from both theory and actual prototypes demonstrates that narrative and storytelling principles can inform the design of modern information systems. Currently, corporations such as Coco Cola are recasting their Web presence as an online magazine reflecting a corporate trend by marketers to recast communications with consumers as storytelling rather than advertising. Libraries too can take advantage of these insights in storytelling for Web interface design and online communication, for recasting how we communicate to our users through our flagship service, the online catalogue. Speaker: Mark-Shane Scale is from Kingston, Jamaica in the West Indies/Caribbean, where he pursued a BSc in Political Science with Statistics and later MLIS at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus. He has worked as a teacher librarian in a vocational school and later as a Departmental Librarian at the University of the West Indies, Department of Library and Information Studies. Eventually Mark-Shane got the opportunity to work as an Assistant Lecturer for the Department. He currently lives in Canada and is pursuing a PhD in Library and Information Science. His area of interest and specialisation is in information sources in social media and personal and organizational storytelling in knowledge sharing. He also has an interest in keeping up with technological trends such as social media and artificial intelligence. He is married and is the thankful father of 3 young girls. In this monthly feature of NCompass Live, the NLC’s Technology Innovation Librarian, Michael Sauers, will discuss the tech news of the month and share new and exciting tech for your library. There will also be plenty of time in each episode for you to ask your tech questions. So, bring your questions with you, or send them in ahead of time, and Michael will have your answers. NCompass Live - March 20,2013 http://nlc.nebraska.gov/ncompasslive/

1. 1
Presented by:
Mark-Shane Scale
PhD Candidate
University of Western Ontario,
Canada
mscale@bell.net
NARRATING THE OPAC:
How Can Storytelling and Narrative Analysis Improve the User-Friendliness of the
Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC)

2. 2
Libraries and librarians have many stories to
Introduction: tell.
Goals for this presentation
Main goals are to:
 Change how we think about the OPAC
 Get us to see how we can narrate our
collections through the OPAC
 Get us to see how we can apply
storytelling to our library communication

3. 3
My premise:
 Whilenew media & technologies create new
forms of storytelling, ancient storytelling
practices can and are impacting the design
and development of new technologies.

4. 4
Where
organizations are
now creating
online narratives
and engaging in
online storytelling

5. 5
Question is:
The OPAC:
• Resource discovery tool
Can the same • Tells a narrative about human knowledge
principles be applied • A narrative of the knowledge accessible
to informing the through the library
design of the library‟s
OPAC?

6. 6
Literature
 Storytelling genres of science  Various works indicate how
fiction, folklore and storytelling and narrative
mythology (including Old can be applied to
Testament) has impacted technology for the purposes
the development of new of information provision.
technologies
(Laurel, 2001; Weizenbaum, (Powell, 1999; Kendall & Losee,
1976) 1986; Domokos, 2007)

7. 7
LIS literature on narratives and stories
Berrypicking Sense-Making
 Bates (2005) online databases not  Dervin‟s sense-making metaphor
designed based on how people includes narratives and stories as
actually conduct searches. means by which people reduce
uncertainty and bridge information
 People pick up fragments of
gaps.
information from various sources and
constructs a final story to organize the  Exchange of information often
bits of information (Orr, 1996) accompanied by the exchange of
stories (Orr, 1996; Fisher, 2005)
 Also use personal experience
(Schank, 1999; Orr, 1996)
The Bricolage Information grounds

8. 8
Literature on stories
Stories in learning Organizational storytelling
 The way people approach new  Boje‟s (2008) definition of stories –
knowledge acquisition is through the more than one voices
reliance on stories from others
 Gabriel (2000) – stories are wish-
(experts) combined with their own
fulfilling fantasies between fiction and
experience in order to learn
reality
something new (Kolodner, 1997;
Schank, 1999)  Reality based, but not necessarily
truth/fact
 Artful manipulation of facts

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Metaphor for the
OPAC
Following Laurel (1993) and Fisher (2005),
Laurel (1993) critiques the rather than perceiving the OPAC as a tool
metaphors of the computer as a for resource discovery, let us conceptualize
tool, and proposes instead the the OPAC as
metaphor of the computer as  a medium facilitating storytelling about
medium. humanity‟s knowledge as well as
 A medium facilitating resource discovery.
Fisher‟s idea of information
grounds: liminal space for
exchange of stories as well as
information

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Technology Prototypes for storytelling
 First person (journalistic) narratives (Miller, 2008)
 Video performance
 Text and images (usually photographs)
 Timeline approaches (beginning, middle and end)

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Laurel, 1993
prototype:
Fictional personal
storytelling  demonstrates the feasibility of using fictional
characters to provide access to non-fiction
information sources.
 features 3 agent characters/guides that
provide multimedia access and narrative
approach to navigating information in a
database.
 the 3 agent characters or guides embodied 3
alternative perspectives about various topics
in American history: a frontiersman, a Native
American and a settler woman.

12. 12
Laurel, 1993 These agents are
prototype:  designed based first person narrative account
Fictional personal of incidents and topics related to the
westward expansion in America.
storytelling
 cast as anthropomorphic storytellers
performing stories in video format.
 characters represent and provide context to
information sources in the database.
Sources of these accounts are derived from
diaries and journals of real historical persons that
experienced the expansion.

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Laurel, 1993
prototype: Credibility of the agent performers established
Fictional personal through a video segment
storytelling  introducing themselves,
 describing their real-life professions and
 the source materials used and lessons learned.
This establishes the agents as storytellers rather
than fictitious characters, thereby reinforcing their
credibility.

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Laurel, 1993
prototype: The agents
Fictional personal  represent varied point of views allowing for
storytelling multiple representations of events and
knowledge,
 give the user various perspectives from which
to explore the content and the knowledge in
the knowledgebase.
This approach is natural in that in the real world
human beings do not “navigate to” information,
but rather experience information coming to
them from a variety of sources (page 183).

15. Carletto: a fictional Italian 15
anthropomorphic spider, acting as a
virtual guide to a historical site.
Lombardo & • Designed for mobile devices
Damiano‟s (2012) • Virtual representative of the
Cultural heritage interface of the application using
storytelling to guide visitors touring
spider tour guide an old Italian palace.
• is the single-character narrator
performing
dramatically, communicating
factual and fictional information
about places and objects within the
site.

16. Carletto: 16
• produces mobile dramatic performance
Lombardo & on the handheld devices of
users, alternating between information
Damiano‟s (2012) provision of facts and anecdotes that
Cultural heritage actually occurred in the space with
fictional experiences.
spider tour guide • professionally guides the visitor by
discussing and formally describing
rooms, their functions, historic events and
the artistic features and objects in the
room.
• Template or script-based storytelling
approach that responds to visitors
movement

17. augmented reality?
17
With Carletto,
• fictional world is superimposed on to
Lombardo & the real world.
Damiano‟s (2012) • follows the visitor by a webcam, by
which he can give contextually
Cultural heritage relevant information to the current
spider tour guide room in which the visitor occupies.
User‟s presence in
a room is input to
Cartello to provide
information on the
location.

18. Developers use
ontological 18
approach to
fragment the
communicative
Carletto knowledge into
units from the
most general to
specific.
Not all information is
Carletto reacts to users‟ provided at once.
location on the mobile Some retained, in case
screen through the user later returns to
annotated scripts. the room.

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What can we learn from the
literature?
 The idea of representing viewpoints in information sources
(Laurel, 1993)
 Non-fiction information can be presented by imposing and combining
fictional representation with real world factual information (Laurel, 1993;
Lombardo
 Such an effort can create an unforgettable experience for those who also
access the information.
(Laurel, 1993; Lombardo & Damiano, 2012)

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find information resources on restaurants
1st narrative:
 fictional – based on imagination about how the
world should be (similar to philosophy‟s thought
Method: experiment?)
 Sense-making of future possibilities using historical
advances
One query
2nd narrative:
 created from dialogue with artificial intelligent
2 narratives conversational agent, modifying the agent‟s
response to more interesting and relevant
(real & responses.
fictional)  Sense-making of the present (about how the
world currently operates & problems)

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Fictional story
 In a parallel universe, John, a designer, steps into the virtual public library
to use its online catalogue to search for information resources on
restaurants.

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The query
 He types into the search box and launches into his search

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The results in the fictional world
On analysis, he realizes that the library‟s catalogue retrieves 3 categories of
results
1. Non-fiction sources
2. Life-writing sources – autobiographies, memoirs of restaurant founders and
workers
3. Fiction – stories with restaurant settings

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Under non-fiction results, John sees the
following:
 Magazines and Newspaper articles:
 Reviews of restaurants
 News features on restaurants
 Books:
 Hospitality industry textbooks
 Food and beverage service text books
 Scholarly journal articles
 Operating and managing restaurants
 Studies, issues and problems in restaurant management

25. 25
Under life-writing results, John sees the
following:
 Memoirs, autobiographies or biographies of:
 Restaurant founders or owners
 Employees /former employees
 Books, newspaper and magazine articles:
 Company documents and publications from
 Restaurants
 Industry and trade associations for restaurant service providers
 Institutions and agencies that monitor restaurants

26. Analysis of the results that John sees: 26
Nonfiction Life-writing
 Magazines and Newspaper articles:
 Reviews of restaurants  Memoirs, autobiographies or biographies of:
 News features on restaurants  Restaurant founders or owners
 Employees /former employees
 Books:
 Hospitality industry textbooks  Books, newspaper and magazine articles:
 Food and beverage service text books  Company documents and publications from
 Scholarly journal articles  Restaurants
 Operating and managing restaurants  Industry and trade associations for restaurant
service providers
 Studies, issues and problems in restaurant
management  Institutions and agencies that monitor
restaurants

27. Analysis of the results that John sees: 27
Nonfiction Life-writing
 Magazines and Newspaper articles:
 Reviews of restaurants  Memoirs, autobiographies or biographies of:
 News features on restaurants  Restaurant founders or owners
 Employees /former employees
 Books:
 Hospitality industry textbooks  Books, newspaper and magazine articles:
 Food and beverage service text books  Company documents and publications from
 Scholarly journal articles  Restaurants
 Operating and managing restaurants  Industry and trade associations for restaurant
service providers
 Studies, issues and problems in restaurant
management  Institutions and agencies that monitor
restaurants

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So what if we tried Laurel‟s approach
to presenting such results
J. McDonnel, a journalist from
the Public library press.
Hi, I am J. McDonnel, a journalist from
the Public library press. I have a number
of media articles on restaurants to bring
to your attention.
 Breaking news on the trends in the
restaurant industry
 Reviews and reports of restaurants
 Special news features on
restaurants

29. 29
So what if we tried Laurel‟s approach
to presenting such results
J. McDonnel, a professor at the
Public Library school of
hospitality Hi, I am Prof. J. McDonnel, a professor at the
Public Library school of hospitality. I have a
number of research articles and monographs
on restaurants to bring to your attention.
 For an overview of the basics see:
 Hospitality industry textbooks
 Food and beverage service text books
 For more current research, check out
these databases

30. 30
So what if we tried Laurel‟s approach
to presenting such results
J. Chin, restaurant owner
Hi, I am J. Chin, manager of family
owned restaurant for a number of
years. I want to bring to your
attention a number of:
 memoirs, autobiographies and
biographies of:
 Restaurant founders or owners
 Employees /former employees

31. 31
So what if we tried Laurel‟s approach
to presenting such results
Customer of restaurants
Hi, I am J. Fisher, and I have been a
customer of restaurants for years. I
want to bring to your attention these:
 Reviews of restaurants
 Tips on etiquette
 Tips for eating out at restaurants
 Consumer guides

32. 32
Practical application of results page
 Potential solution: Facebook‟s principle of:
 “View as specific person”

33. 33
Narrative 2:
Actual search in the real world
Let me tell you about what happened to me
the other day when I was searching the
library catalogue of the London Public library
I hear that England is a
great place.
No, not that London. London
in Canada.
I‟m sorry. First thing that
comes to mind when I
think London is England
with tea and scones.

34. 34
Narrative 2:
Actual search in the real world
Anyway… The other day I experimented
with the library's online catalogue, and
typed in restaurants. And in my analysis of
the results, I noticed that the first
assumption of the system is that the user
wants non-fiction information.

35. Books are listed first
35
and then articles.
Isn‟t that something you
would expect

36. But a person using the
library catalogue may 36
not want to see non-
fiction first.
I‟m quite sure that the
system provides some
way of filtering the
results so that you can
find just fiction
To be fair, I also
noticed that to the
side, one can select
format –
Fiction, picture
book, DVD etc. But still
that might not be
sufficient.

37. 37
I checked out the non-fiction section for a life-writing source,
and curiously noted the title:
So I checked it out on Amazon to
see what it was about as well as
any reviews on the book.

38. 38
Here is what I found based on
Amazon‟s book description:
Temporarily putting aside his role as playwright, director,
and screen-writer, David Mamet digs deep and delivers
thirty outrageously diverse vignettes. On subjects
ranging from the vanishing American pool hall, family
vacations, and the art of being a b****, to the role of
today's actor, his celebrated contemporaries and
predecessors, and his undying commitment to the
theater, David Mamet's concise style, lean dialogue,
and gut-wrenching honesty give us a unique view of the
world as he sees it.

39. 39
You see.
Titles are often misleading. The book
entitled Writing in restaurants by Mamet
has nothing to do with restaurants at all.
While the book is indeed non-fiction, it is
more life-writing or reality based, and
should not be confused in the non-fiction
information category.

40. Fiction results:
40
Next, I checked the fiction
category. Key to my observation
was whether or not I could find a
fictional work is set in a restaurant
setting. For this I saw a few results
that matched what I was
expecting to find
Like these 2 resources that
showcase fiction stories in
restaurant settings.

41. Fiction results:
41
So I clicked on the title: Simmer
down
And further found that the library
in its subject description has a
category for restaurants under
fiction.
I‟m not sure persons
would be looking for
fiction works based on
settings. I don‟t think that
would be a normal
expectation of any
fiction reader.

42. Fiction results:
42
Perhaps not, but, did you
also see that this fiction
book contains recipes?
Hmmm…I get you. So
people can get non-
fiction information out of
supposedly fiction books.

43. 43
That‟s right!
But I still had some unanswered questions:
Like what?
1. How do we observe reality-based writing
or more accurately life-writing set in a
restaurant setting?
2. What is provided by the system to facilitate
discovery of restaurant life-writing ?

44. 44
In my view, there is no direct way provided
for the user to locate autobiographies and
memoirs of restaurant CEOs, owners or
employees in book formats if they do not
already know the titles or authors.
But I‟m sure that one
can modify the query
to get more specific
results.

45. 45
You are right. Indirectly, one can expand the
query term 'restaurant„, like including
„memoir‟ with it.

46. 46
Stories have representational
value, placing information in the
context of view points.
Summarizing
learning Storytelling also makes sharing and
accessing information an experience

47. 47
Conclusion: WE CAN TELL STORIES ABOUT
OUR COLLECTIONS

48. 48
4 Questions for the OPAC of the future
Can we
1. have fictional (imaginary), historical or even real characters as narrators
representing the perspective of information resources/knowledge available
through the library?
2. combine the time line view for browsing purposes or use a “view as”
interface to filter results?
3. base narrators on the demography of users, creating characters that are
imagined experts or others that represent people that users would consult for
advice based on their task requirements?
4. represent dialogic voices, disagreement or disputes over knowledge
(neutrally) without taking sides and let the users decide which voice(s) to
listen to?

49. 49
Other questions and issues:
 Can such principles be used for our information literacy sessions and
training?
 Once exposed, user may no longer need the storytelling tutorial or guide
to use the OPAC.
 Should the OPAC storytelling be an opt-in or opt-out
experience, considering that some users are already experts and do need
guidance?

50. 50
Comments, Criticisms and Queries

51. 51
References
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Technology by Information Today.
Kolodner, J. L. (1997). Educational implications of analogy: A view
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Dervin, B. (2005). What methodology does to theory: Sense-making
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References
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