Janine Plays

Janine's explicit use of the metaphor of play to describe her online research pursuits signals her understanding of online research as more than a rigidly structured activity--and as something enjoyable and fun.

Figure 12. Janine discusses her sense of research play

Janine frames her online searching as a game where the process offers a challenge: What information can I find and how can I determine its usefulness? (For a complete transcript of the interview with Janine, see the Words link or download the pdf transcript here.)

When doing a sample search related to her dissertation, for example, Janine said, "and that's the other fun thing, to try and figure out whether these people are just, you know, whether they're some guy who just wrote a book about typewriters or whether he's a faculty [member] somewhere." The video clip available here shows Janine using Google to determine whether Victor Linoff is a faculty member somewhere or just "some guy" who put up a web page. Notably, it is through this seemingly inefficient play that Janine develops the strategies to function successfully in an environment of "information overload." (For a complete transcript of the interview with Janine, see the Words link or download the pdf transcript here.)

Figure 13. Video capture of Janine searching Google for information on Victor Linoff

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