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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.

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 aims to report findings from a qualitative study about the information sharing patterns of beekeepers on online platforms.

The required data were collected from the publicly available user-generated content on popular beekeeping YouTube videos. Videos with high traffic were defined by the number of views, subscribers and comments. The sample includes 2,000 post-video comments, with the highest contribution in the discussions. The data were categorised through a deductive thematic analysis into ten categories, including information, advice, impression, opinion, responses, expression of personal feelings, general conversations, site processes, video content description and non-response comments.

The findings show that beekeepers are keen to share their experiences through public online platforms like YouTube and interact with fellow beekeepers and beekeeping enthusiasts. They share a range of beekeeping tips and techniques, varying from hive management and honey production to seasonal hive care and bee feeding. Sharing these practical hints helps them enhance their skills and learn from each other through tutorial videos or community engagement. Their willingness to share information generates a sense of support through online discussions and the formation of communities of practice.

The findings have practical implications for the stakeholders, including amateur beekeepers, beekeeping content creators and information professionals. Understanding the diverse engagement patterns can help YouTubers improve the quality of their videos and engage their audience. Also, information professionals can play various roles, such as curating special collections or local guides for beekeepers, facilitating workshops and promoting citizen science initiatives to help hobbyist beekeepers contribute relevant data to scientific research.

There is little research about the information behaviour patterns among beekeepers, and this paper contributes to this area by providing some empirical findings and attempts to fill the gap to some extent.

The paper reports the findings of a research project exploring the information experiences of bonsai growers in Australia as an example of a serious leisure pursuit.

The study used phenomenology as a qualitative approach in an interpretive paradigm. The data collection technique was a semi-structured interview with open-ended questions, and 23 volunteers were recruited via a maximum variation sampling strategy. The study employed the Serious Leisure Perspective and Information Experience as its theoretical frameworks.

Bonsai growers rely on three primary sources of information: publications, people, and plants. They use formal and informal publications across various media. They interact with fellow bonsai growers to share experiences and seek advice. The shape and conditions of bonsai trees are sources of embedded information that help them to make informed decisions in their practice. They have a culture of information sharing on many grounds, such as local clubs, online forums, and workshops. Their embodied information manifests in their sophisticated skills of shaping bonsai trees to express the aesthetic principles of this ancient art.

The findings are contextual and cannot be generalised. A generalisation of the result needs to be tested in a broader population.

Engaging in the bonsai hobby often fosters a sense of community among bonsai enthusiasts. Understanding these social connections can contribute to the development of supportive networks and enhance belongingness.

The study contributes to understanding the information experiences in serious leisure. It offers new evidence-based insights that can inform the design of information systems and services tailored to the needs of leisure pursuers.

The purpose of this research was to investigate how Australian public libraries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of management, planning and communication. The study also investigated operational approaches to the development and implementation of new and adapted models of service and resource delivery.

Utilising a multiple qualitative case study approach, interviews were conducted with 15 Australian public library staff members at three library services – one inner-city, one regional and one remote. Inductive thematic analysis was employed to generate insights into the operations and management strategies employed during the COVID-19 crisis.

Findings suggest that public library managers performed admirably in the face of significant logistical, budgetary and regulatory challenges. Five key themes emerged to represent the ways in which public library leaders responded effectively to the crisis: resourcefulness, flexibility, presence, sensitivity and communication. Results also demonstrate the importance placed on library users’ welfare.

This research represents the first study to focus on the response of Australian public library managers to the significant challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to identify the strategies employed by library leaders to respond effectively. In doing so this research provides valuable insights into how public library managers can prepare for future crises.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the best interactions between sales promotion and advertisement plans as the resources of the brand attachment and its consequences in durable and fast-moving consumer goods.

The mixed methods research in the form of qualitative approach, using a phenomenological method and quantitative approach, using three experimental studies of factorial design types and a structural equation modeling method, have been used in this research.

The fit of plans to achieve the brand attachment is similar in both product categories. The financial gift, with the ability of liquidity and variety of shopping, fits with the advertisement messages at a high construal level and high argument strength. However, the financial gift, with the ability of purchase from particular stores, fits with the advertisement messages at the low construal level and high argument strength. Moreover, in both product categories, the brand attachment leads to the emotional and cognitive consequences.

This research provides experimental support with actual experiences to create a fit in marketing communication plans in order to achieve a lasting and strong relationship. Therefore, this paper offers a valuable insight relating to financial gifts and advertisement messages and their effects on consumers’ behavior. It can also be used by other managers and researchers to assess their communication options.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the lived experiences of Australian public library staff during the COVID-19 library closures. The study examines the effect of mandated physical library closures on staff well-being, along with the challenges they faced as library operations moved to a remotely delivered model. The paper includes an examination of staff perceptions of their library's value in the lives of their users.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 15 Australian library staff from three library networks. A process of inductive coding resulted in a thematic description of the participants' experiences of continuing to work during a period of where their libraries were closed due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Australian public library workers experienced many challenges that affected their well-being during the period of library closures. These included challenges relating to moving library programming to a virtual delivery model, managing significant change in their work lives, managing the emotions of self and others, and concern for the well-being of library users. Positive outcomes relating to skill development and innovative thinking were also reported.

The operational responses to the COVID-19 library closures in Australia and elsewhere have been well reported. This paper takes a different approach by examining the emotional and well-being outcomes for public library staff during these periods of closure.

This paper seeks to report selective findings of a wider study to identify the mechanisms that end users employ to overcome their information seeking failure on the web.

Data collection was conducted by semi‐structured and in‐depth interviews. The study adopted a qualitative approach and was carried out based on grounded theory. The biology community at the University of Sheffield was selected as the research population.

Identified coping strategies are divided into active and passive categories. Active strategies such as revising and help‐seeking require further actions to obtain more satisfactory results. In contrast, passive strategies entail less action to modify the situation and mainly relate to accepting the existing circumstances. Web users prioritise their coping strategies according to the importance of the search topic and their determination to fulfil the search successfully. They develop coping strategies through training courses, using trial and error, knowledge sharing and employing pre‐web coping strategies.

This study was limited to a small group of web users in academia that cannot be easily considered as an acceptable representative of the heterogeneous population of web users. Moreover, the collected data was based on web users' perception of their search failure rather than an objective measure of it.

Most studies in this area are concerned with users' information seeking behaviour and focus on how people find what they want. However, this paper addresses an aspect of this process that has received little attention up to now. The paper explores users' reaction to, and conceptualisation of, information seeking failure and their coping strategies to overcome the failure in web searching. The findings provide us with a better understanding of users' information seeking behaviour on the web.

This paper aims to encapsulate the main procedure and key findings of a qualitative research on end‐users' interactions with web‐based search tools in order to demonstrate how the concept of “information visibility” emerged and how an integrative model of information visibility and information seeking on the web was constructed.

The study was formed of three parts. The first looked at conceptions of the Invisible Web; the second explored conceptualisations of the causes of search success/failure; the third organised the findings of parts 1 and 2 into a series of theoretical frameworks. Data collection was carried out in three phases based on interviews with a sample of biologists.

The first part led to the development of a model of information visibility which suggests a complementary definition for the Invisible Web. The results also showed the participants were aware of the possibility that they had missed some relevant information in their searches. However, perceptions of the importance and the volume of missed information varied, so users reacted differently to the possibility that they were missing information. The third part indicated the “Locus of Control” and “Attribution Theory” that can help us to better understand web‐based information seeking patterns. Moreover, “Bounded Rationality” and “Satisficing Theory” supported the inductive findings and showed that users' estimates of the likely volume and importance of missed information affect their decision to persist in searching.

The study creates new understanding of web users' information seeking behaviour which contributes to the theoretical basis of web search research. It also raises various questions within the context of library and information science practice to know whether, and if so how, we can assist end‐users to develop more efficient search strategies and satisfactory approaches.

The research adopted a combination of inductive‐deductive methods with a qualitative approach in the area of information seeking on the web which is mainly dominated by quantitative studies.

This paper seeks to depict an overall picture of an exploratory research journey to exemplify how qualitative studies on little understood phenomena can be done successfully. The paper aims to show how the author adopted an appropriate approach and an apposite methodology to cope with the uncertainty, stress and ambiguity arising during exploratory research.

The paper was developed based on a reflective and narrative approach by the author to highlight the pivotal milestones of the reported research. The paper narrates how the research naturally evolved through seven stages including origination, orientation, exploration, elucidation, consolidation, reflection and culmination.

Dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity is inevitable in exploratory studies. Constant interplay with the data, thorough implementation of the employed methodology and deep involvement with the research context are pivotal elements to achieve success in these studies. Finally, findings from an inductive analysis can be considerably consolidated by deductive re‐analysis.

The paper can inspire novice researchers to tolerate the unavoidable vagueness of early stages in qualitative research. It reassures them to trust the emergence of new horizons if they thoroughly follow an apposite methodology. Nevertheless, what is reported here is based on a personal experience of the author, which cannot easily be generalised to other circumstances.

There are few publications in library and information studies journals based on researchers' reflections on what they have learned in their studies which might be useful for future researchers. Thus, this paper can contribute to the area by illustrating the procedure of an exploratory study which began with high uncertainty but ended with satisfactory results.