Purpose The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of relevant information features for users seeking anime recommendations. Design/methodology/approach The study uses content analysis of 396 recommendation request threads from the online forum at Anime News Network. Findings In total, 19 important anime information features were identified, including Work, Theme, Genre, Audience, Mood, while Artwork/Visual Style, Audio Style, and Language were mentioned less frequently. However, when mentioned, these codes were discussed with specificity and depth. Research limitations/implications This study analyzed a relatively small number of 396 forum records, without demographic information. Using content analysis of online forum threads written by real users provided both informational breadth and depth. Future studies would benefit from using content analysis to investigate unfamiliar multimedia information and user groups. Practical implications The findings of this study can be implemented in anime-related databases and information systems to enhance organization, browsing/retrieval, and recommendation of anime, which can be further utilized for other audiovisual materials. Originality/value This is one of the few studies that investigate what anime users need and want. This research examines an understudied cultural medium, underserved by current research, despite an expanding community of anime users.

Despite the increasing importance of video games in both cultural and commercial aspects, typically they can only be accessed and browsed through limited metadata such as platform or genre. We explore visual styles of games as a complementary approach for providing access to games. In particular, we aimed to test and evaluate the existing visual style taxonomy developed in prior research with video game professionals and creatives. User data were collected from video game art and design students at the DigiPen Institute of Technology to gain insight into the relevance of the existing taxonomy to a professional audience. Using a think-aloud card sort method, we observed their thought process for describing and categorizing visual styles of video games, and also collected candidate terms for revising the taxonomy. The results of this research will inform ongoing metadata work in the field to develop a standard for cataloging video games and interactive media, and will be useful to information systems that sort and classify games for users and cultural preservation.

Game development artifacts resulting from the creation process of video games, such as design documents, style guides, test builds, and marketing materials, provide rich contextual information about how and why the game was created. Better organizing and preserving these materials will not only enrich our understanding of the history of these media but also educate and inspire the next generation of video game creators. This research aims to improve our theoretical understanding of how to organize and represent game development artifacts by examining the various types of artifacts created and their attendant issues and challenges. We adopted a multimethod approach employing an examination of existing collections and 29 interviews with creators, information professionals, and game researchers. From these data, we analyze the current practices, expressed values, and perceived challenges of these stakeholders, produce a taxonomy of game development artifacts, and provide best practices recommendations for describing them.

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Local institutions need to organize information sets with complex information and attributes. Whether or not open source software has the ability to adequately provide a robust yet easy-to-use system for such institutions is a question raised frequently. To explore that question, a metadata schema created by the GAme MEtadata Research Group (GAMER) at the University of Washington was implemented in CollectiveAccess (CA), an open source cataloging software used by many organizations to manage digital collections, as a case study. As an organizational system, CA is appealing because it enables users to create metadata schema with relative ease. However, during implementation, issues emerged related to its potential as a long-term solution, including ease-of-use for both administrators and endusers. This poster explains and expands upon the issues encountered during the implementation process, focusing on how they might be resolved, and what the implications are for designing similar applications in the future.