b Chelton, Mary K. and Cool, Colleen (Eds.). (2004) Youth information-seeking behaviour: theories, models and issues. Lanham, MD.: Scarecrow Press.

Keywords:Information seeking behavior, youth

Summary and evaluation:This is a compilation of essays in a book. The editors have collected the essays based on research studies published in high ranking journals during the last decade or so. Emerging topics include: information seeking in school contexts, information behaviour in life-concern situations, information searching in libraries and Web environments. This book is helpful to undergraduate students and their teachers. But the essays are available free in universities’ paid online subscriptions.

b George, Carole, Alice Bright, Terry Hurlbert, Erika C. Linke, Gloriana St. Clair and Joan Stein. “Scholarly use of information: Graduate students’ information seeking behavior.” Information Research, 11, no. 4, (July 2006). Available from http://www.library.cmu/edu/Librarie/ScholarlyUse_Grads.pdf (accessed January 27, 2008).

Keywords:Information use, graduate students, information seeking behavior

Summary and evaluation:This study explored the graduate students’ information behavior as it informs their process of inquiry and scholarly activities. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with one hundred graduate students representing all disciplines and departments from Carnegie Mellon University. The researchers worked in pairs and coded transcripts of interviews into meaningful categories using ATLAS.ti software. From the results, graduate students often begin with a meeting with professors who provide direction, recommend and provide resources. Other students help to shape graduate students’ research activities, and university library personnel provide guidance in finding resources. Convenience, lack of sophistication in finding and using resources, and course requirements affect their information behavior. Findings vary across disciplines and between programmes. The conclusion derived at was: libraries can influence students’ information behavior by reevaluating their instructional programmes and provision of resources and services. They can take a lead by working with academic personnel to guide students. Information Research journal is an open-access, international, scholarly journal dedicated to making accessible the results of research across a wide range of information-related disciplines. Being privately published and edited by Professor T.D. Wilson makes this site reliable and accurate, thus included in this bibliography. It is fitting to know the information behavior of graduate students from this site.

b Graves, Amy (2007). Children’s information-seeking behavior: a bibliography. Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pa. http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~aeg46/bib.html

Keywords:Information-seeking behavior, children

Summary and evaluation:This bibliography contains articles that describe research studies concerning children’s information-seeking behavior, excluding articles focused on the information-seeking behavior of young adults (high school or beyond). Many of the articles that were selected focus on children’s use of electronic resources. All articles are in English, and were published within the last ten years (1998-2007). There are 16 articles in this site. I included this in order to know the behavior of the children when seeking information using the Web or the Internet.

b Heinstrom, Janica. “Five personality dimensions and their influence on information behaviour.” Information Research. 9, no. 1 (October 2003). [Available from http://InfromationR.net/ir/9-1/paper165.html]

Keywords:Information behavior, personality

Summary and evaluation:This article emphasizes the importance of considering psychological mechanisms for a thorough understanding of users of information services. The focal point is the relation between personality and information seeking which is explored through a quantitative analysis of 305 university students’ personality traits and information habits. It is shown that information behavior could be connected to all the personality dimensions tested in the study – neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, competitiveness and conscientiousness. Possible explanations for these relations are discussed. It is concluded that inner traits interact with contextual factors in their final impact on information behavior. [Original abstract] Coming from a source edited by TD Wilson, this article is a good reference on studying the psychological factors affecting information behavior.

b Hektor, Anders (2001). What’s the use? Internet and information behavior in everyday life. PhD. Diss., Linkoping University. http://www.bibl.liu.se/liupubl/disp/disp2001/arts240s.htm

Keywords:Information behavior, Internet, everyday use, information studies, information system, media, usefulness, IT, relevance

Summary and evaluation:A widespread access to computers and the Internet at home signals a change in the “information environment” of everyday life. This thesis deals with how this new situation can be studied and understood. Based on the assumption that Internet should be seen as an information system that is finding its place alongside more familiar information systems in everyday life, the objective is set out to develop a conceptual framework of information behavior in everyday life.The empirical material consists of previous research on information behavior (predominantly from the Information Studies field of research), and of qualitative case studies of ten information users in the context of their non-work everyday lives, collected by means of diaries and interviews.The primary result is a model which offers a viable framework for understanding information behavior in everyday life, with the characteristics that: It considers all forms of information behavior; it makes it possible to study information systems in concert that previously have been studied only separately; it goes deep into the circumstances of everyday life; it offers means to understand the significance of social relations and communities for individual information behavior. The secondary result offers insights into particular user behavior concerning the Internet in relation to other information systems in everyday life. [Original abstract] This is included since it would be good to know the everyday information-seeking behavior of people in Sweden. The writer offers inspiring thoughts and ideas for reflection and further exploration. A book form of this thesis is on the making.

b Jarvelin, Kalervo, Ingwersen, Peter “Information seeking research needs extension towards tasks and technology.” Information Research, 10, no. 1 (2004). Available from http://informationr.net/ir/10-1/paper212.html

Keywords:Information seeking research

Summary and evaluation:This paper discusses the research into information seeking and its directions at a general level. The approach was by analysis and argumentation based on past research in the domain. It began by presenting a general model of information seeking and retrieval which was used to derive nine broad dimensions that are needed to analyze information seeking and retrieval. Past research was then contrasted with the dimensions and shown not to cover the dimensions sufficiently. Based on an analysis of the goals of information seeking research, and a view on human task performance augmentation, it is then shown that information seeking is intimately associated with, and dependent on, other aspects of work; tasks and technology included. This lead to a discussion on design and evaluation frameworks for information seeking and retrieval, based on which two action lines are proposed: information retrieval research needs extension toward more context and information seeking research need extension towards tasks and technology.

b Kari, Jarkko and Reijo Savolainen. Relationship between information seeking and context: A qualitative study of Internet searching and the goals of personal development. Library & Information Science Research, 29, no. 1 (March 2007): 47-69

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=HomePageURL&_method=userHomePage&_btn=Y&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=6b8f8a0bb11c4ebe676f09e6d7da52c8

Keywords:Information seeking, Internet searching, personal development

Summary and evaluation:Little research has explored how exactly information processes relate to their context. Context is defined as all those things which are not inherent part of information phenomena, but which nevertheless bear some relation to these. This article addresses the issue by discussing empirical findings from a study on Internet searching and personal development. The purpose of the article is to construct a general typology for researching the links between information seeking and its context. Grounded analysis of the whole corpus revealed 11 different relationships between Internet searching and the goals of personal development. Because these seem to be quite generalizable to information seeking in other contexts (e.g. parenting or location), too, they were then abstracted into four generic relationships: detachment, unity, direction, and interaction. The classifications are offered as tools for understanding information seeking more contextually and for conducting further research in this area. Information seeking is not only about keyboarding, it also touches on achieving the goals of personal development. This article will give understanding on psychological aspects of how we seek information.

b OCLC (June 2002). How academic librarians can influence students’ Web-based information choices. OCLC White Paper on the Information habits of college students. http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/community/informationhabits.pdf

Keywords: Information seeking behavior, librarians, web-based information choices, college students

Summary and evaluation:This study concentrates on the web-based information habits of college students and their use of campus library websites, in particular, finding that college and university students look to campus libraries and library websites for their information needs. As confident and savvy users of electronic information resources, college students value access to accurate, up-to-date information with easily identifiable authors. They are aware of the shortcomings of information available from the web and of their needs for assistance in finding information in electronic or paper formats. [Original abstract]The report presents data pertaining to university students’ preferences and needs regarding library resources. Further, this report recommends tactics to increase libraries’ visibility on the Web and help connect students with high-quality information resources. Any librarian needing data on information-seeking behavior of U.S. college students can find here significant information to assist with an environmental scan or community analysis. This is a commissioned web survey of OCLC from December 2001 to January 2002. This is a good data to establish a baseline for future studies on meeting students’ information needs through the use of the library website and online services. I included this to know the information seeking behavior of college students.

b Soo Young Rieh “On the Web at home: Information seeking and Web searching in the home environment.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 55, no 8 (June 1, 2004) 743-753. available from http://www.proquest.com (accessed March 20, 2008).

Keywords:Information seeking in the home, web search in the home

Summary and evaluation:As more people gain at-home access to the Internet, information seeking on the Web has become embedded in everyday life. The objective of this study was to characterize the home as an information use environment and to identify a range of information seeking and Web-search behaviors at home. Twelve Northern California residents were recruited, and the data were collected through semi-structured at-home interviews based on a self-reported Search Activities Diary that subjects kept over a 3-5 day period. Findings indicated that the home, indeed, provided a distinct information use environment beyond physical setting alone in which the subjects used the Web for diverse purposes and interests. Based on the findings, the relationships among home environment, Web context, and interaction situation were identified with respect to user goals and information-seeking behaviors. It would be interesting to know how people at home gain information from the Internet. This article caught my attention to know information seeking behavior other than in school and in work place. Because fewer studies have explored the information seeking behavior ordinary and impoverished people, this article is a good reference for studying their information seeking behavior.

b Seiden, Peggy, Kris Szymborski and Barbara Norelli. Undergraduate students in the digital library: Information seeking behavior in an heterogenous environment. Choosing Our Future, ACRL Annual Conference Papers. Available from http://www.ala.acrlbucket/nashville1997/pap/seidenszymborski.cfm (accessed January 27, 2008).

Keywords:Information seeking behavior, digital library, undergraduate students

Summary and evaluation:There is a paucity of research on general undergraduate user behavior particularly in the emerging digital library environment. This paper presents the results of a preliminary study of information seeking among sixty undergraduates at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY. The study was design to 1) assess students’ information seeking behavior in general; 2) elicit information about the search process; 3) discern how students had acquired their knowledge of online searching and their level of expertise with online searching, computer applications and libraries. The results indicate that most undergraduates have a relatively poor understanding of the information environment, and that the “digital library” exaggerates and magnifies these problems. [Original abstract] It is interesting to know how these undergraduates seek information through the digital library. Growing up in the digital age does not necessarily mean the undergraduate students know how to use the information and the technology they have in hand, they have to be guided by the librarian.

b Wieman, Chris (2006) Annotated bibliography of research on the information-seeking behavior of adolescents. MLIS, thes. Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pa. http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~crw44/bib.html

Keywords:Information seeking behavior, adolescent, annotated bibliography

Summary and evaluation:This bibliography is a survey of sixteen peer-reviewed papers that explore the information seeking behavior of adolescents. The principal groups studied include junior and high school students and are variously described by the authors as adolescents, teenagers, or young adults. These case studies appeared in print and online academic journals within the time period 1973 to 2006. This survey includes the work of primary scholars in the field like Carol Kuhlthau, Denise Agosto, Ross Todd and many others, all of whom explore a field that touches all disciplines and individuals. From their research, these authors ask other scientists, librarians, and teachers to recognize the humanity in each student and to approach each information exchange with patience, professionalism and concern. Because the study of information seeking behavior is a fairly new discipline, the majority of the papers selected were written during the past ten years. In addition, this focus helps introduce the scholar to the most relevant contemporary data as quickly as possible. A few older articles are also included to help the scholar to understand the history of the scientific study of these behaviors. This discipline and the research selected range from a time when information was exchanged primarily through speech and print to the present day in which new media and technologies inspire continual analysis and interpretation. [Original abstract] There are fifteen journal articles cited in this classified annotated bibliography submitted for the course in LIS masters degree. I find the articles in this site interesting since it gives an overview about the behavior of the adolescents in their information seeking.

b Wilson, T.D. “Human Information Behavior.” Special Issue on Information Science Research 3, no.2 (2000): 49-55. available from http://inform.nu/articles/Vol3/v3n2p49-56.pdf (accessed March 23, 2008).

Keywords:Human information behavior, information seeking, research, user studies.

Summary and evaluation:This paper provides a history and overview of the field of human information behavior, including recent advances in the field and multidisciplinary perspectives. T.D. Wilson is a known researcher in the field of information seeking behavior. This article gives simple definition of information seeking behavior, traces the history and origin, presents the early studies on information needs and information behavior.