Experiencing documents
| Published date | 08 July 2014 |
| Pages | 544-561 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-01-2013-0013 |
| Date | 08 July 2014 |
| Author | Kiersten F. Latham |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management |
Experiencing documents
Kiersten F. Latham
School of Library and Information Science, Kent State University,
Kent, Ohio, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to invite further consideration of how people experience
documents. By offering a model from Reader Response theory – Louise Rosenblatt’s Transactional
Theory of Reading – as well as examples from research on numinous experiences with museum
objects, the author hopes to open further avenues of information behavior studies about people and
documents. The goal is to incorporate more aspects of lived experience and the aesthetic into practice
with and research of documents.
Design/methodology/approach – Theoretical scope includes Louise Rosenblatt’s Transactional
Theory of Reading, John Dewey’s concepts of transaction and experience and lived experience
concepts/methods derived from phenomenology.
Findings – Rosenblatt’s Transactional Theory explicates the continuum of reader response, from the
efferent to the aesthetic, stating that the act of “reading” (experience) involves a transaction between
the reader (person) and the text (document). Each transaction is a unique experience in which the
reader and text continuously act and are acted upon by each other. This theory of reading translates
well into the realm of investigating the lived experience of documents and in that context, a concrete
example and suggested strategies for future study are provided.
Originality/value – This paper provides a holistic approach to understanding lived experience with
documents and introduces the concept of person-document transaction. It inserts the wider notion of
document into a more specific theory of reading, expanding its use beyond the borders of text, print
and literature. By providing an example of real document experiences and applying Rosenblatt’s
continuum, the value of this paper is in opening new avenues for information behavior inquiries.
Keywords Museums, Transactions, Documents, Numinous, Reader response, Rosenblatt, John Dewey
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
The world is filled with documents – physical things that signify. Everywhere we look
there are documents – in our homes, our libraries, our museums, our daily path to
work. There are, in fact, so many documents in our lives that we begin to take them for
granted. But what is our relationship wi th documents? How do they affect us (and how
do we affect them)? In other words, what is the lived experience with a document?
Lived experience refers to the immediate, dynamic and direct experience of the world
as it is lived by a person. It is the active experience of the lifewo rld, the sum of
these immediate experiences and activities that make up the world of an individual.
This world we live in is filled with things, with objects that we experience, encounter,
appreciate, take-for-granted, use, make and ke ep. Manyof these things are documents,
things upon which we humans ascribe meaning.
If we exist surrounded by documents, they become a part of our wo rld and we
interact with them. What happens when a person encounters a document? How does a
person experience a document and why would we care? How do we refer to, study and
describe this experience? There is abundant work on information behavior, but much
of it looks at the outcome of a person using a document. But what happens in the
moment of using or encountering one, what does it mean to experience a document?
This paper uses a set of concepts drawn from the reader response theory (RRT) of
Louise Rosenblatt – her Transactional Theory of Reading – to investigate a range
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
Received 31 January 2013
Revised 16 April 2013
Accepted 29 April 2013
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 70 No. 4, 2014
pp. 544-561
rEmeraldGroup PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/J D-01-2013-0013
544
JDOC
70,4
of user experiences of documents with the intention to develop further tools with which we
can investigate them. In particular, the concept of transaction, drawn from philosopher
John Dewey, becomes central to the understanding of lived experience with documents.
The first goal of this paper is to provide an overview of Rosenblatt’s Transactional
Theory of Reading. Following this, I will clarify and organize the meanings of related
concepts, such as transaction, interaction and experience, and their origins in order to
elucidate their usage throughout. After that, I provide a specific illustration of one kind
of document transaction, the numinous experience with museum objects, in order to
demonstrate the aesthetic end of the continuum. I will then introduce and summarize a list
of strategies derived from Rosenblatt’s theory. Finally, I include a discussion of how to apply
these concepts and tools and what might be done in the future with them. By articulating
Rosenblatt’s theory and its concepts and providing an empirical example, I believe we can
begin to apply it to other contexts, in fact, any human transaction with documents.
The transactional theory of the literary work
Instead of two fixed entities acting on one another, the reader and the text are two aspects of a
total dynamic situation. The “meaning” does not reside ready-made “in” the text or “in” the
reader but happens or comes into being during the transaction between reader and text [y]
“meaning” is what happens during the transaction (Rosenblatt, 1994, p. 1063).
Over her long career, Louise Rosenblatt developed a comprehensive theory of the
reading process using Dewey and Bentley’s transactional approach and Dewey’s notion
of an aesthetic experience. In a culmination of more than 40 years of work, her book
The Reader, the Text, The Poem: Transactional Theory of the Literary Work[1]
(Rosenblatt, 1978) synthesized her view of the reading process as a transaction
between the reader and the text. She continued to build on the theory for many years
afterwards developing it further. RRT[2] is an approach to literary criticism that sees
the reader as an active participant in making meaning from the reading act
(Rosenblatt, 2003). Central to RRT is the idea that the text gains meaning by the
purposeful act of a reader reading and interpreting it, making the relationship between
the reader and the text of primary importance (Beac h, 1993; Rosenblatt, 2003).
Rosenblatt’s theory was built over many years (Connell, 1996; Rosenblatt, 1969;
Rosenblatt, 2005), drawing from the conceptual work of philosopher John Dewey and
his notion of transaction. Rosenblatt wanted to understand human experience with
literary works of art (and ultimately, all textual media) (Rosenblatt, 1978). She was
interested in what happens in a reader’s mind during the reading act and what occurs
when the person and the text meet (Latham, 2009). Rosenblatt (1978) suggested that all
readings of texts are transactions but how they are experienced depends on what
happens when the text and the reader come together in a unique situation and what
purpose (“stance”) the reader has going into the relationship/event (Rosenblatt, 1994).
According to Rosenblatt (1978, 1994), experiencing a text can range from the analytical
(efferent) to the synthetical (aesthetic) and never falls “purely” at one end or the other,
but rather moves dynamically back and forth as the event unfolds (se e Figure 1).
outward
Rosenblatt’s Efferent/Aesthetic Continuum of a Reading
readin
g
= dynamic movement back and forth
AESTHETICEFFERENT inward
Figure 1.
Rosenblatt’s continuum of
efferent to aesthetic
reading
545
Experiencing
documents
To continue reading
Request your trial