Information perspectives in my research area…

The influence of an information perspective on my project will depend on my research question, which I am still debating. However, in my area of interest, there are several options that I can pursue with an information perspective in mind. I recently took another look at my daisy from last week, and I filled in the final missing petal that I had left blank. With this week's blog question in mind, I thought about the role of information in my grandmother's life, and I decided that the missing petal was “Censorship and Surveillance”. With these topics in mind, I might be able to formulate a research question that involves an information science perspective.

In my grandmother's life, and during the area that she lived, censorship and surveillance were common factors relating to information, that would have had an impact on my grandmother's life, and subsequently, my own.

For example, in my family there is a tradition of emphasizing the importance of education. My family has always held education and learning in high regard, and it was often encouraged (an example of this was when we would receive Christmas or birthday presents, it was a rule that if we asked for books, or other learning materials, we could expect to receive more than other gifts, like games or toys) This stems from the experience of my grandparents during the war. My grandfather was prohibited by the German authorities from pursuing any post-secondary education. He spent the war as a chauffeur to a German businessman, but he would acquire school textbooks and hide them under the seat of the car he drove in order to continue his education.

That is just one story that I have heard about my grandparents experience that would relate to information perspective based research. I would hope that if I were to further uncover my grandmother's life story, and gain knowledge from her about my other family members, I might uncover more knowledge about the role of information during their lives in that time period. This could lead to a research question based around the comparing and contrasting of my own experience with my grandmother's, and how her experience has influenced my own. This is an inchoate idea however, and would need more refining before I can consider it a full research question.