When "organizing becomes an extension of your brain": DJs, music libraries and information practices

Abstract

As contemporary discourses of technology move from identifying information overload as a general concern to designing applications and conducting investigations that understand information overload on a more granular level, it becomes increasingly important to conceptualize what information overload means in everyday life. This paper addresses issues of being overwhelmed by media, looking specifically at a group of people for whom the stakes of media organization are quite high, namely DJs. With the emergence of digitally-stored music, music enthusiasts have been able to build increasingly large collections, to the extent that users frequently become overwhelmed by tasks of organizing their collections and creating usable playlists. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 13 DJs, I examine obstacles in organizing digital music. With thick descriptions of how music technologies are and are not meeting the needs of a high-use groups, this paper contributes to human information behavior research on organizational practices in everyday life within a particular community of practice.