The homesteading or back to the land community is one of people seeking self-reliance and independence for various reasons through small scale independent farming and food preservation and crafting. The members are very diverse and include but are not limited to individuals who consider themselves environmentalists or survivalist. Most become homesteaders without any homesteading background or agricultural skills and so the information needs of these individuals are met through printed material as well as homesteading websites, blog posts, and YouTube channels. These homesteaders are what Antonia Smith in her article The Farm Wife Mystery School,calls a social movement learning in in an online community of practice (Smith, 2015 pg 143). There is no structured online class that one takes and then is certified a homesteader. It is a community that shares information by teaching each other methods and giving advice. The homesteaders’ needs are further defined by Teresa Housel in her article Solar Panels, Shovels, and the Net. She found that homesteaders “generally use the Internet to obtain information about homesteading, communicate with others, or counteract isolation from living rurally (Housel, 2006, pg.195).” When considering the information needs of these homesteaders one must keep in mind their …show more content…
“Information groundsmay be defined as an environment temporarily created by the behavior of people who have come together to perform a given task, but from which emerges a social atmosphere that fosters the spontaneous and serendipitous sharing of information (Savolainen, 2010, 1785)." One popular blogger and YouTube homesteader had a very serious accident which then became the topic of discussion. Besides citing various home remedies, she also would talk of the cards, money and gifts she received from her friends in the