Page 23 - DLIS102_LIBRARY_AND_ITS_USERS

Library and its Users

Notes In Different Contexts

Much Library and Information Science (LIS) research has focused on the information seeking practices
of practitioners within various fields of professional work. Studies have been carried out into the
information-seeking behaviors of librarians, academics, medical professionals, engineers and
lawyers (among others). Much of this research has drawn on the work done by Leckie, Pettigrew
(now Fisher) and Sylvain, who in 1996 conducted an extensive review of the LIS literature (as well as
the literature of other academic fields) on professionals’ information seeking. The authors proposed
an analytic model of professionals’ information seeking behaviour, intended to be generalizable across
the professions, thus providing a platform for future research in the area. The model was intended to
“prompt new insights... and give rise to more refined and applicable theories of information seeking”
(1996, p. 188). The model has been adapted by Wilkinson (2001) who proposes a model of the
information seeking of lawyers.

Theories of Information Seeking Behavior

A variety of theories of information behavior-e.g. Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort, Brenda Dervin’s
Sense Making, and Elfreda Chatman’s Life in the Round - seek to understand the processes that
surround information seeking.
A review of the literature on information seeking behavior shows that information seeking has
generally been accepted as dynamic and non-linear (Foster, 2005; Kuhlthau 2006). People experience
the information search process as interplay of thoughts, feelings and actions (Kuhlthau, 2006). Donald
O. Case (2007) also wrote a good book that is a review of the literature.
Information seeking has been found to be linked to a variety of interpersonal communication
behaviors beyond question-asking, to include strategies such as candidate answers.
Robinson’s (2010) research suggests that when seeking information at work, people rely on both
other people and information repositories (e.g., documents and databases), and spend similar
amounts of time consulting each (7.8% and 6.4% of work time, respectively; 14.2% in total). However,
the distribution of time among the constituent information seeking stages differs depending on the
source. When consulting other people, people spend less time locating the information source and
information within that source, similar time understanding the information, and more time problem
solving and decision making, than when consulting information repositories. Furthermore, the
research found that people spend substantially more time receiving information passively (i.e.,
information that they have not requested) than actively (i.e., information that they have requested),
and this pattern is also reflected when they provide others with information.

Analyze the information seeking behaviour.

Self Assessment
Fill in the blanks:

1. ...... is a premier research and development organization in the area of lasers, accelerators
and its related disciplines.
2. ...... is the process or activity of attempting to obtain information in both human and
technological contexts.

18 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY