Information – creation, accession, consumption, and dissemination – pervades everything we do and is a foundational characteristic of information communities. From studying the information seeking behaviors of varied and diverse populations to analyzing information activities in online settings, the importance of the exchange is foundational to understanding libraries, emerging information technologies and design, and the management of knowledge in organizations. Many researchers have explored various ways in which people interact with information. Theories and models of information behavior, such as those by Carol Collier Kuhlthau, Marcia J. Bates and Brenda Dervin, illuminate the process of seeking, gathering, encountering, and utilizing information.
Module 3 Lecture
- Lecture: Web Version
- Lecture Slides: Download Information Seeking Behavior here
- Video File: Download Video Podcast
- Audio File: Download Audio Podcast
Module 3 Readings
Things to Read:
- Models of Information Behavior (Case & Given)
- “Information Behavior” (Bates)
- Chapter 5: Information Needs (O’Brien et al.)
Note: Some of the articles you will be reading this term were published years ago (sometimes decades ago!), but because they are foundational pieces, and because this is a foundational class, we are assigning them so that you know the important articles in our field to which many more recent articles will refer.
Things to View:
Things to Explore:
- “Information Exchange in Virtual Communities” (Burnett)
- “Information Communities” (Fisher & Durrance)
- “Information Behavior During COVID-19” (Montesi)
- “Human Information Behavior” (Wilson)
- “Inside the Search Process” (Kuhlthau)
See also: A complete list of Module 3 readings