The Tumblarians

Tamarack Hockin, San Jose State UniversityFollow

Abstract

This paper examines the tumblarians as an information community and discusses community membership, information behaviours, and complementary models for a situated understanding of this unique personal-professional community. A review of the literature concerning LIS bloggers is presented as a complement to the tumblarians, who have no in depth treatment in the research as yet. Characteristics particular to the tumblarians are explored through informal conversation with a community member, and Fisher, Unruh, and Durrance's (2003) information communities model is employed to provide a deeper understanding of the information behaviour of the tumblarians. This paper offers suggestions for future research based on the preliminary findings of the tumblarians as LIS bloggers and a virtual community.

About Author

Tamarack Hockin is a first year MLIS candidate at the San Jose State University School of Information, and a public library technician working in information services and new media. Tamarack's research interests include transliteracy, informal and self-directed learning in libraries, and discourse within the LIS professions.