We conducted a pilot study to explore refugee students' access to and use of information during the settlement process. Using arts-based elicitation and semi-structured interview techniques, we probed the information world of a refugee student studying in Canada. Our findings begin to identify the scope and variety of information sources that students consult at various stages of settlement and their utility. Our continued work in this area seeks to assist the Student Refugee Program (SRP) on our campus to advocate for and meet the information needs of refugee students by understanding what information is needed, when it is needed, and how to provide optimal access to it.

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Information researchers increasingly use participatory, arts-based methods to better understand the social contexts of individuals and populations. However, it remains rare to engage in qualitative analysis of the resulting visual artefacts. This article explores approaches to analysing visual media generated through a specific arts-based method, information world mapping (IWM), an interdisciplinary draw-and-talk technique that elicits data about individuals’ social information worlds. Here, we test four approaches to analysing visual media generated through IWM: directed qualitative content analysis (QCA), compositional interpretation, conceptual analysis and visual discourse analysis using situational analysis (SA). QCA was effective in creating an overview of participants’ information practices, yet raised concern regarding interpretive bias. Using an inductive taxonomy for compositional interpretation, we identified genre conventions for IWMs. Conceptual analysis resulted primarily in a reflection of the research procedures and epistemology. SA, while time-consuming, generated a large amount of rich data, including discourses and power relations that were not identified in previous analysis of textual data. In a reversal of our previous stance that cautioned against IWM analysis, we encourage other researchers to consider integrated or secondary visual analysis of IWMs.

This work explores embodied mobile information practices through a photo-diary and interview study with nineteen smartphone users. We qualitatively analyze 234 diary entries and one hundred descriptions of diary entries to explore how mobile devices, specifically smartphones, facilitate embodied information seeking and production, drawing insights about the use of mobile devices as nonverbal communication tools. In addition, we probe the notion of smartphones as an extension of the human body, and ways in which the affordances of these devices (e.g., portability, convenience) support and interrupt information practices. In particular, we observe that mobile devices are not only perceived as extensions of the mind and body, but are embedded in bodily rhythms and routines. This research extends empirical work in Library and Information Science (LIS), which has not focused extensively on mobile information practices in connection with the body, and suggests that the theoretical lens of embodiment may inform future work on mobile information practices.With the arrival of electric technology, man extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system itself. -Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of ManAlthough the old dichotomy between function and form could be vaguely maintained for a hammer, a locomotive or a chair, it is ridiculous when applied to a mobile phone.

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