There’s no shortcut: Building understanding from information in ultrarunning

Abstract

Now that information proliferates, information science should turn its attention towards higher order epistemic aims, such as understanding. Before systems to support the building of understanding can be designed, the process of building understanding must be explored. This article discusses the findings from an interpretative phenomenological analysis study on the information experience of participants in a 100-mile footrace which reveal how these participants have built understanding in their athletic pursuits. Three ways in which ultrarunners build understanding – by taking time, by undergoing struggle and by incorporating multiple perspectives – are described. The ensuing discussion leads to three questions that can guide the future development of information systems that support understanding: First, how can information science slow people down? Second, how can information science encourage people to willingly struggle? And, third, how can information science stimulate analogical thinking?

Understanding and Information Constellations in Ultrarunning

“…This should be welcome, as research in information experience has been of recent interest but no attempts have been made to link information experience to broader, ongoing themes in information behavior or information studies generally. I have proposed this link in an earlier essay (Gorichanaz 2017a), and in this paper I offer a more concrete discussion. To sketch my view: Information experience allows for the recognition of pathic knowledge (emotive, intuitive) as a legitimate way of knowing, whereas traditional frameworks of information behavior only recognize gnostic knowledge (procedural, conceptual); both forms of knowledge are important for building a rich understanding of a phenomenon.…”

“…Information Research in Ultrarunning This study explores information in the sport of long-distance running, specifically ultrarunning (for a philosophical discussion of the ethos of ul-trarunning compared to other forms of distance running, see Gorichanaz 2016).…”

Supporting truth and promoting understanding: Knowledge Organization and the curation of the infosphere

“…Lyn Robinson and I have argued that LIS should take a new stance of focusing on the promotion of understanding as much as on the provision of information and the sharing of knowledge in an era when, for most people for the most part, information is provided through search engines, particularly Google, through a few encyclopedic websites, particularly Wikipedia, and through social media (Bawden andRobinson 2016A, 2016B). In this environment, we contend, the promotion of understanding falls, arguably uniquely, within the remit of LIS; this seems to be a novel suggestion, although it has been supported by Gorichanaz (2016Gorichanaz ( , 2017, and fits within the Floridi-derived idea of LIS professions as 'curators of the infosphere' (Bawden and Robinson 2018).…”

Information experience in personally meaningful activities

“…For the past several years, I have been engaged in research on diverse domains of personal meaning. I conducted one study on Bible reading among Catholics (Gorichanaz, ), another on hobbyist ultradistance running (Gorichanaz, ), and another on visual artists' self‐portraiture (Gorichanaz, ). These studies were conducted, analyzed, and published separately, furnishing empirical findings on each of these domains.…”

“…The full details regarding recruitment and the participants can be found in my prior publications (Gorichanaz, , , ), so here I will give only a brief overview. The first group, Bible readers, was comprised of six individuals in Philadelphia who identified as Catholic; there were two men and four women, ranging in age from their mid‐20s to 60s.…”