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The purpose of this study was to identify the role of two kinds of leisure activities (i.e. casual and serious leisure) in reducing psychological and physiological stresses and, specifically, to investigate the differences between pre- and post-psychological and physiological stresses.

The data analyses were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 20.0 program. Descriptive analyses were calculated to identify the characteristics of the sample, including gender, education and age. Because of the small sample size (n < 30), this study uses a nonparametric test. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to examine the differences between pre- and post-stresses of psychological and physiological approaches. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to examine the differences of stresses between the casual and serious leisure groups. In addition, the Kendall rank correlation coefficient was used to measure the association between leisure experiences and stresses.

The findings from this study indicated that pre-overall affective stress was significantly higher than post-overall affective stress. There were significant differences between pre- and post-physiological stresses during serious leisure. Research findings also suggested that serious leisure experiences have a significant and negative relationship with cognitive stress and physiological stress.

The data were obtained from two different types of leisure setting, and hence, the generalizability of the study findings to other regions needs to be explored in future studies. Research across other leisure settings also might permit the validation of more stable relationships between leisure and stresses. Future research is needed to investigate other important antecedents of individuals’ psychological and physiological stresses in the leisure setting and may identify the complex nature of leisure participants’ perceptions and their relationships with experiences.

Despite the growth of stress and leisure research, physiological-based analyses in this area are limited. Numerous studies have focused on leisure coping with negative life events based on social psychological perspectives. The finding of this study would be helpful to leisure practitioners to manifest the strengths and opportunities of experiences and performances associated with the leisure activity.

This paper reports findings from a research project about human information behaviour in the context of serious leisure. Various forms of information activities in this context have been identified and categorised to depict common patterns of information seeking, sharing, using and producing.

The project adopted a qualitative approach in an interpretive paradigm using a thematic analysis method. Data-collection technique was semi-structured interview and 20 volunteers were recruited via a maximum variation sampling strategy. The collected data was transcribed and thematically analysed to identify the main concepts and categories.

The participants have been experiencing six qualities of serious leisure during their long-term engagement with their hobbies or voluntary jobs and their experiences can be fully mapped onto the serious leisure perspective. The findings also confirmed serious leisure is a unique context in terms of the diversity of information activities embedded into a wide range of individual and collective actions in this context. Information seeking and sharing in serious leisure is not only a source of personal satisfaction for the participants, it also can provide them with a sense of purpose in a meaningful journey towards self-actualization and social inclusion.

The generalisability of the findings needs to be examined in wider populations. Nonetheless, the existing findings can be useful for follow-up research in the area.

This study will be useful in both policy and practice levels. In the policy level, it will be beneficial for cultural policy makers to gain a better understanding about the nature of leisure activities. In the practice level, it will be helpful for serious leisure participants to understand the value of information seeking and sharing in their leisure endeavours. Also, information professionals can use it to enhance the quality of their services for the serious leisure participants who are usually among devoted patrons of libraries, museums, archives and galleries.

Learning about serious leisure can provide new insights on people preferences in terms of choosing different entertaining and recreational pursuits – such as indoor and outdoor hobbies – in their free time.

The informational aspects of serious leisure is an emerging and evolving ground of research. This paper provides empirical evidence on this topic from a specific context in the regional areas in Australia.

This paper provides selective findings from a broader research project on information behaviours in serious leisure. This paper focuses on the positive feelings of information seeking and sharing in this context, aiming to capture and contextualise the joy of information embedded in and inspired by leisure activities.

The required data were obtained using semi-structured interviews with 20 serious leisure participants from Wagga Wagga city in Australia, recruited via a maximum variation sampling technique. The data were fully transcribed and analysed based on a qualitative thematic analysis method.

The joy of information is embedded within a wide spectrum of information activities in serious leisure ranging from information seeking and browsing to information sharing and information creation. Among all these activities, information sharing with peers and a broader audience is the most joyful experience because it often generates social engagement, a sense of belonging and friendship. Moreover, serious leisure is a productive ground to transform hedonic wellness into eudaimonic well-being, while continuous information seeking and sharing play a significant role in achieving this goal.

Information system designers can use the findings to consider the emotional aspects of information seeking and sharing to improve the usability of their products. At the policy level, cultural policy writers and decision-makers can make more informed decisions to support serious leisure.

This study explores the joyful aspects of information behaviour in a unique context. Exploring the joy of information is an emerging topic in human information behaviour scholarship, and the existing knowledge on this issue is still limited. This paper can contribute to creating new knowledge in this emerging area.

Recognising tourists’ increasing desire for authentic destination-specific experiences, the hospitality industry has responded by increasing provision of innovative culinary activities. This study aims to use the concepts of serious leisure and terroir to examine how knowledge, physical environment and service quality influence co-creation within the culinary tourism context.

Following cooking class participation, 575 domestic Iranian tourists were surveyed. These educational classes provide opportunities to learn about local foods alongside peers in an interactive setting. Consistent with the benefits of serious leisure, this consumption context could prove conducive to stimulating co-creation.

Prior knowledge strongly influences tourists’ reflective and recreational motives for participation (i.e. the benefits of serious leisure). This shapes how tourists evaluate physical environments and service quality therein; influencing value co-creation and supporting serious leisure as the conceptual lens through which to understand experiential culinary consumption.

The proposed conceptual model was tested on domestic tourists following class participation. However, in suggesting that visually-stimulating, tactile premises with the olfactory appeal can encourage co-created experiences, the findings are relevant to service touch-point management more generally.

Recognizing the influential role played by the physical and social aspects of experiential consumption, the serious leisure framework improves an extant understanding of value co-creation.

Drawing on a framework of Job Demands-Resources (JD-R), the purpose of this paper is to conceptually develop and empirically validate a moderated mediation model of serious leisure and workplace well-being.

The data were collected between December 2020 and March 2021 using an online questionnaire. A total of 225 completed questionnaires were received from employees in India who graduated between 2018 and 2020.

The authors’ findings indicate that serious leisure is positively associated with workplace well-being and that the relationship is mediated by self-perceived employability. Stress moderates the relationship between serious leisure and self-perceived employability in such a way that the association is stronger when levels of stress are higher. Stress also moderates the mediating effect of self-perceived employability on the relationship between serious leisure and workplace well-being such that the indirect effect of serious leisure on workplace well-being is stronger when levels of stress are higher.

Theoretical implications come from drawing on leisure studies literature to differentiate casual leisure and serious leisure. The concept of serious leisure is subsequently integrated into the human resource management literature to explore the relationship between serious leisure, self-perceived employability, stress, and workplace well-being. Practical and policy implications suggest how universities and organisations can support their students and early careers talent by encouraging them to participate in serious leisure activities.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the leisure information behaviour of motor sport enthusiasts, examining: their information needs; their information seeking and sharing; what personal information they had; and their satisfaction with their information seeking and personal information management efforts.

This exploratory study examined participants’ information behaviour from a postpositivist and inductive research approach. An online survey was completed by 81 motor sport enthusiasts. The quantitative survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics, whilst the qualitative data were analysed using thematic coding.

The research findings highlighted that enthusiasts engaged in mixed serious leisure. They required information before, during and after race events, and sought this primarily from online sources, as well as from other individuals. Totally, 90 participants shared information about their interest in motor sport with family, friends and fellow enthusiasts, primarily via e-mails (69 per cent) and Facebook (49 per cent). They also gathered information about motor sport, including photographs and memorabilia. Participants were satisfied with their information management strategies for their personal collections.

Participants were limited to motor sport enthusiasts in Australia, hence findings cannot be generalised more broadly.

Understandings of enthusiasts’ information behaviour provide information management professionals with insights to work with this user community.

This study fills a gap in the literature about leisure information behaviour of motor sport enthusiasts in Australia. It identifies and provides a typology of the 12 categories of information needed by enthusiasts. Provides a preliminary motor sport information behaviour model guided by the conceptual frameworks of the everyday life information seeking model; general models on information behaviour; and the information problem solving behaviour model.

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 aims to examine the motivations of a group of music fans of the Eurovision Song Contest to seek information about the competition and to participate in a virtual community of fans.

The study draws from the uses and gratifications framework to understand the needs that a particular mass medium fulfills for its users. Fifteen Eurovision fans were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. Interviewees were asked to talk about how they seek information about the competition, to relate their engagement and participation with the virtual community and to reflect on the role that the community of fans and the Eurovision have in their lives.

Content analysis revealed four themes that reflect the motivations that shape many aspects of participants lives, relating to seeking information about the Eurovision Song Contest, fulfilling the need for serious leisure, making social connections, finding a sense of belonging and forming an identity.

The study examines the motivations of a group of people who share a common interest that shaped the ways the seek information, related to others, view themselves and construct their identity and make social connections, all to satisfy their love and admiration for the competition, and this regardless of the societal stigma that the competition might carry.

This study extends the literature on serious leisure information seeking by exploring the role that information and social media play in different aspects serious leisure activities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore aspects of creating, seeking, sharing and management of information in food blogging as serious leisure.

Participants' conceptualisation of food blogging and the role of information in it is interpreted through in‐depth interviews and analysis of activity on the UK Food Bloggers Association web site.

Food blogging as a leisure pursuit resulted in the creation of new information sources, for which existing information is a source of inspiration. The content, and style of blogs, and so their nature as information sources, were influenced by the extent of involvement in a professional‐amateur‐public (PAP) system. Information about publics or audiences was of great concern and a focus of collegial information sharing. The management of content implies greater personal information management needs, but the data did not show great awareness of this, rather interviewees were concerned with access management. Pre‐professionals had an intensified concern with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

Food blogs may be better understood by placing them in the context of the PAP system.

Food bloggers are sophisticated users of information and ICTs, but have unrecognised access management and information management requirements that have potentially significant design implications.

This paper adds to the growing literature on information aspects of serious leisure by examining activity within Stebbins' professional‐amateur‐public system.