Competency J
Information Seeking
Information Seeking
Describe the fundamental concepts of information-seeking behaviors and how they should be considered when connecting individuals or groups with accurate, relevant and appropriate information.
Introduction
Human beings are complex, often erratic creatures. We make decisions that we would have a hard time explaining, and that might even run counter to what we would consider our goals—if we can even articulate what those goals are. Still, many people have put great effort into trying to understand and describe our behavior. This is definitely true when it comes to information seeking, as evidenced by the number of theories researchers have formulated attempting to explain why and how people engage in this activity.
Competency J tells me that I should have knowledge of some of these models because if I understand an information seeker’s motivations, actions, and states of mind at different points in their journey, I have a better chance of designing useful services for them and having successful interactions with them as I assist them directly or help them navigate information retrieval (IR) systems to find the information they want or need. Here I describe four models I encountered in my classes.
Bates – Berrypicking
Bates’s (1989) model takes its name from an analogy comparing information-seeking behavior to “picking huckleberries or blueberries in the forest. The berries are scattered on the bushes; they do not come in bunches. One must pick them one at a time” (p. 410). Her model describes a user’s journey through the information-seeking process as one that is linear, but that does not follow a straight line. Rather, the path shifts as the user’s ideas and thinking about their search evolve.
Central to her model are four “areas”: the evolving nature of the query, the piecemeal nature of the search process, the wide variety of search techniques the user employs, and the range of domains or environments where user finds sources (pp. 409, 421). She uses these areas to contrast her model with the “classic” model of IR. In particular, her model’s evolutionary view of the search process diverges from the classic model’s treatment of the user’s query as an isolated thing that the user forms at the outset of the process and that remains unchanged throughout (p. 409).
Furthermore, the second area, concerning the nature of the search process, posits that the process does not end with just one piece of information or set of search results the way the classic model does, but rather that the user discovers different resources and pieces of information along the way that collectively form the resolution. This is Bates’s model’s eponymous “berrypicking.” These individual, berry-picked pieces of information are primarily what cause the user to evolve their thinking about and approach to their problem throughout the process.
Bates (1989) designed her model to place a greater emphasis on user interest, which she felt was missing from the classic IR model (p. 408). Her motivation was to replace a model that she felt was responsible for “limit[ing] our creativity in developing IR systems that really meet user needs and preferences” (p. 409). Hers, she believed, would represent user searches more realistically, and as a consequence, would enable information professionals to build better IR interfaces and functionality for more successful user-system interactions.
Kuhlthau – Information Search Process (ISP)
Kuhlthau developed her ISP model in 1991 and 1993 to address what she saw as a gap in library and information science research: i.e., past studies focused on the information system itself rather than on the information seeker’s behaviors, and more specifically, the user’s “classic triad of thoughts, actions, and feelings central to any constructive process” (2009, p. 264). Her theory approaches information-seeking behavior from the seeker’s point of view and breaks down their information journey into six stages: task initiation, selection, exploration, focus formulation, collection, and presentation. To these stages she applies the classic triad, which she rebrands as affective, cognitive, and physical “realms of experience” (p. 264).
As an individual information seeker makes their way from initiation to presentation, they engage in new actions and experience new feelings and thoughts. Kuhlthau (2009) theorized new affective realms of experience at every stage—e.g., uncertainty during initiation; confusion, frustration, and doubt during exploration; and either satisfaction or disappointment during presentation—while the cognitive and physical could span multiple stages—e.g., vague thoughts from initiation through exploration, and exploring actions from selection through collection (p. 265). All of these realms of experience are closely tied to one another, with the affective and cognitive being particularly correlated. For example, Kuhlthau (2009) wrote, “the affective symptoms of uncertainty, confusion, and frustration prevalent in the early stages are associated with vague, unclear thoughts about a topic or problem” (p. 264).
Kuhlthau’s (2009) goal was to help information professionals support the information seeker, and to that end, she described “zones of intervention” (p. 268) to identify when it would be best to lend aid or advice to the information seeker to help them through their current ISP stage.
Wilson – Uncertainty Resolution
Like Kuhlthau, Wilson believed that uncertainty is the main motivator for the information seeking process, and that the cause of that uncertainty is a lack of or gap in understanding that results in a problem the person is trying to solve. In his 1999 model he drew upon the Kuhlthau’s and others’ as well as his own previous information-seeking models, but differentiated it by focusing on information search behavior, which he considered to be a subset of information-seeking behavior.
For Wilson, information search has to do with how people interact with IR systems and other digital systems, while information-seeking is more generally concerned with the ways people find and access resources (p. 263). He identifies four stages that people go through in their quest to move from uncertainty to more certainty:
problem identification: figuring out the type of problem
problem definition: describing what the problem is
problem resolution: deciding how to find the resolution
solution statement: the answer to or proposed course for dealing with the problem, and not a guaranteed stage
Wilson hypothesized that people did not move through these stages in a straight line; rather, if they failed in one stage, they might enter a “feedback loop” (p. 266), reverting to the preceding stage for more insights.
Dervin – Sense-Making Theory
Dervin (1983) articulated her model in a conference paper as a culmination of what she called an “8-year programmatic effort to study how people construct sense of their worlds and, in particular, how they construct information needs and uses for information in the process of sense-making.” Two of the central concepts of this model are the gap and the bridge. The user encounters a situation where they recognize and then define a gap in knowledge. This gap in knowledge is or becomes their information need, and on the other side of the gap is the outcome, which is a situation where they obtain information that makes sense to them. That is, the information is the sense, rather than its own object independent of the user. The user bridges the gap and arrives at that sense by moving through time and space—though only metaphorically, for, as Dervin (1998) wrote, “While we can usefully assume that life is lived in a linear time-space, in fact our results say that sense making and sense unmaking are not” (p. 39).
According to Wilson (1999), while Kuhlthau’s model represents an “active search mode of information-seeking behaviour” (p. 257), Dervin’s model incorporates aspects of behaviors outside that realm, such as “the context in which information needs arise” (p. 257). Despite this broader conception, the model is still useful for giving information professionals actionable insights into their patrons’ behaviors. Indeed, Dervin (1998) expressed that “the Sensemaking metaphor provides guidance for thinking about people, talking to them, asking questions of them and designing systems to serve them” (p. 39).
Application
In my coursework I learned that for the information professional, the value of these theoretical models is this guidance that Dervin spoke of. That is, the information professional must take the insights these models give into human behavior and put them into practice to connect people with the information they seek. These models help the information professional build empathy with the user by elucidating their motivations and their state of mind at different stages in their information-seeking journey. This allows the professional to provide the right assistance at the right time, reducing confusion and uncertainty and improving results and confidence in the outcome.
My classes taught me that as an information professional, it is necessary to conduct an interview with the information seeker to identify their stage in the journey. For instance, if they are still trying to define their problem, then it is too early to recommend resources to them. An attempt to do so would mean either picking resources that very likely wouldn’t actually match their needs, or recommending many resources to cover different potential needs, resulting in information overload. Either option would result in frustration and increased uncertainty for the information seeker.
Evidence
Evidence 1: INFO 200 Information Communities – Information Community Research Paper
My culminating research paper for INFO200 Information Communities takes a deep look at the whole information-seeking environment of the comics and comic book fan community. My discussion includes the resources available to this information community, an overview of services provided to it, issues within and challenges facing it, and opportunities for information professionals to better serve the community.
In this class I learned about the common characteristics of information communities as defined by Fisher, Unruh, and Durrance, and about Fisher and Bishop’s (2015) categories of communities. I placed my paper’s subject in the “affinity” category, with the members united by their common love for comic books and/or comic strips. Being aware of these categories and characteristics is helpful in understanding their behaviors and thus in designing and providing services tailored that that community.
This assignment shows that I am able to thoroughly research, analyze, and describe those information needs and behaviors of a particular community. This includes synthesizing relevant articles and books in a review of the professional literature for deeper insights into themes, schools of thought, and methodologies relating to this information community.
For example, in this paper I apply yet another information-seeking behavior model, Savolainen’s concept of everyday life information seeking (ELIS), which I felt was pertinent to this group of users who were not attempting to resolve a problem out of necessity but rather related to a leisure pursuit. I relate this to the development of new modes of information seeking and community building, such as the formation of an internet community of fans of Japanese anime and manga called “Gaia Online.”
This assignment thus shows my ability to connect the models we studied to real-life practices and knowledge that could help me as an information professional better help members of this information community discover and access the information they seek.
Evidence 2: INFO 210 Reference and Information Services – 21st Century Resource Discovery
For this assignment I investigated the resources available to an information seeker researching the history of the music label Stax Records. My writeup shows my ability to search many indexes and databases to find relevant information for an information community (music fans and historians), taking into consideration the authority and currency of those sources. I also speak to the usefulness of discovery services, if my institution has one available.
Being able to help users discover the right resources at the right time is the crux of the information professional’s role. Discovery services and similar tools make it easier for a novice researcher to dig up volumes of information on their own, but there is a risk here of a surplus of results overwhelming the user.
Furthermore, Nahl (2009) noted that “The users’ ability to articulate requests to the information system depends on their levels of understanding their problems. Because their level of awareness of their information need may be initially low, they may have little success in specifying what is needed” (p. 288). This assignment demonstrates that I am able to think critically about the user’s need and surface a wide variety of resources, with the goal not being to recommend all of those resources to the user all at once, but rather to possibly teach them how to search on the available tools, and at a minimum help them sort through the results to find both the most useful information for their current stage in their information-seeking journey, and perhaps suggest new resources to explore further as they progress.
Evidence 3: INFO 220 Resources and Information Services in Professions and Disciplines: Maps and Geographic Information Systems – Maps and Map Users
In this video I present my study of another information-seeking community, represented by four people who use maps in both their personal and professional lives. Together, these individuals illustrate the wide variety that exists among map users and maps uses, and the challenges and opportunities this presents for librarians at institutions with maps in their holdings.
Even among just these four interviewees, the diversity of map types used on the job includes street maps, aeronautical charts, topographic maps, geologic maps, and specialized, user-generated hybrid maps. Most of the maps are digital, but there are some physical maps as well. Where the users get their maps varies, too, with some coming from software or websites, and others being either user-generated, for example with data from the National Geographic Survey or customized in a commercial app using county Geographic Information Systems (GIS) information.
This assignment shows that I am able to examine a specific, real-world information community, describe the types and formats of resources community members need collectively and as individuals, and identify how the members use these resources either for leisure or in their profession or both.
Through this assignment I learned that librarians don’t have to be experts in all types and sources of information a community seeks or uses. However, it is important to be knowledgeable enough of the needs and behaviors to provide expert assistance to the community I serve. Taking maps as the example, Aber and Aber (2017) asserted that “It is imperative that librarians be familiar with geospatial technologies in order to assist clients in finding resources and creating instructional services for online mapping programs” (pp. 84–85). By working on my own education in the realm of map users, uses, and related technologies, or in some other field of specialty, I can serve interested patrons while also achieving secondary goals such as helping promote geoliteracy.
Conclusion
Information-seeking behavior is not a monolithic thing but a vast realm that requires open thinking and lots of research on the part of the information professional. That includes knowing the various models and theories that explain how people interact with information, researching and understanding the needs and behaviors of particular information communities, and being able to connect the two—to apply the models to provide better respond to user needs.
In particular, I learned through my coursework that understanding where the user is in their information-seeking journey, and their corresponding motivations and state of mind, can help me tailor my approach to providing them aid. For instance, as Kuhlthau (2009) suggested, “If uncertainty is viewed as a sign of the beginning of learning and creativity, the goal of library and information services shifts from reducing uncertainty to supporting the user’s constructive process” (p. 268). This tailored approach will allow me to understand the information seeker as an individual with specific wants and needs, and thus to design better systems for them and provide them with better services.
References
Aber, S. E. W., & Aber, J. W. (2017). Map librarianship: A guide to geoliteracy, map and GIS resources and services. Elsevier.
Bates, M. J. (1989). The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface. On-Line Review, 13(5), 407–424. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb024320
Dervin, B. (1983, May). An overview of sense-making research: Concepts, methods and results to date [Paper presentation]. International Communication Association Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX. https://faculty.washington.edu/wpratt/MEBI598/Methods/An%20Overview%20of%20Sense-Making%20Research%201983a.htm
Dervin, B. (1998, December). Sense-making theory and practice: An overview of user interests in knowledge seeking and use. Journal of Knowledge Management, 2(2), 36–46. https://doi.org/10.1108/13673279810249369
Fisher, K. E., & Bishop, A. P. (2015). Information communities: Defining the focus of information service. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction (pp. 20–26). https://infocom.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Information_Services_Today_An_Introduction_-_3_Information_Communities.pdf
Kuhlthau, C. C. (2009). Information search process (ISP) model. In V. M. Tucker (Ed.). Information retrieval system design: Principles & practice (6th ed., pp. 262–269). https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120043229
Nahl, D. (2009). User-centered revolution: 1970-1995 [ELIS Classic]. In V. M. Tucker (Ed.). Information retrieval system design: Principles & practice (6th ed., pp. 270–305). https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120044792
Wilson, T. D. (1999). Models in information behaviour research. Journal of Documentation, 55(3), 249–270. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007145