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The liberal arts hobby is a leisure pursuit that entails the systematic and fervent pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the liberal arts hobby as a setting for information behavior research.

The method of interdisciplinary translation work is used to relate existing research from the specialties of leisure studies, adult education, and information behavior. Drawing from leisure studies, the liberal arts hobby is presented within the context of the serious leisure perspective, a theoretical framework of leisure. Also, relevant research.

The basic informational features of the liberal arts hobby and adult learning project are discussed in terms of three issues of current interest within information behavior scholarship. The issues are: first, social metatheory and the ideal level of analysis; second, time and information behavior; and third, information behavior in pleasurable and profound contexts.

Research into everyday life, serious leisure and hobbies is extended and methodological tools are provided.

Information professionals, such as public librarians or systems designers, will have a better understanding of the information experience of a popular hobby group and be better able to meet their information needs.

Awareness and understanding of the liberal arts hobby will be increased across the field of information science, thereby creating a better alignment between the field and society.

The paper is the first to establish an interdisciplinary starting point for information behavior research in the liberal arts hobby.

This study investigates the role that sports brands play in building group identity within a niche sports subculture, via research from two different trail running events. Participants exhibit some of the characteristics of an activity-based subculture of consumption, and brands play a role in building group identity. A key factor that drives a serious leisure pursuit to become an activity-based subculture of consumption is identified as high levels of socialising among participants.

The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.

As the leisure industry matures, it is important for marketers to have a clear understanding of why people choose to consume specific leisure services. The paper proposes that “timestyle”, or how a person customarily perceives and uses time, influences the choice of leisure goals and resultant leisure services. Individuals’ timestyles can be characterized in terms of social, temporal, planning, and polychronic orientations. Data from qualitative research suggest that all four dimensions of timestyle can have systematic effects on leisure choices. Knowledge of the timestyle concept and its antecedent influences should allow leisure marketers to better understand and target the motivations that underlie consumer decisions on leisure services.

Heritage management is underpinned by preservation, sustainability and generativity; concerns of obvious interest to domestic audiences. However, domestic tourists are not homogenous and can be differentiated by various characteristics, including proximity to the sites they visit. Drawing upon the consumer-based model of authenticity, this study investigates whether the influence of authenticity, self-connection and serious leisure hold over experience memorability differs for distinct domestic visitor groups.

To investigate perceptual differences between “local” and “non-local” domestic visitors, the authors developed and tested a conceptual model using a sample of 320 heritage site visitors within Tabriz, Iran, investigating the effects of self-connection, serious leisure and perceived authenticity on memorable tourism experiences (MTEs) for both groups.

Significant inter-group differences regarding the influence of serious leisure and self-connection on visitors' perceptions of authenticity emerged. Similarly, the extent to which serious leisure, self-connection and authenticity influenced MTEs also differed. The effect sizes for all proposed relationships were larger for local visitors.

Hospitality and tourism literature often focuses on the boon that inbound international and non-local domestic tourism can bring to local sites and attractions. However, the findings encourage heritage tourism managers to focus greater attention on attracting custom from “closer to home”. With local visitors demonstrating strong pre-, during and post-visit outcomes, the findings suggest local domestic visitors are a market ripe for greater investigation given ongoing international travel restrictions and Iran's historically-limited international appeal.