Information to People: Information Seeking Behavior

Reading assignment #1 (July 4, 2009)


Source Article:

Johnstone, David, Mary Tate.Bringing human information behavior into information systems research: an application of systems modelling. Information Research, vol. 9, n0. 4, July 2004. Retrieved July 2, 2009, from http://informationr.net/ir/9-4/paper191.html.


"Information seeking", "information use" and "information searching" are terms modernly use to describe ways of how people acquire and interact with information. This is the focus of David Johnstone and Mary Tate as they introduce Human Information Behavior, a new perspective in Library and Information Science that encompasses all forms of information seeking and use, including social networks, group dynamics and activities that accurately describe how people relate to information. Basically it discusses the process of how people behave and interact with received information. This is in response to the issues raised by Dervin and Dilan (1986) that the paradigm that is human-centered, situational, constructivist and holistic is essential for studying the process by which people interact with the information in their environment is incompatible with traditional approaches in Information Systems. Systems modelling were proposed to develop a research framework for different approaches and that addressed the points raised by Dervin and Dilan.

In reading this article, i have learned that:

• In seeking information, making decisions and forming opinions, people tend to process information in their personal context, according to the relevance of retrieved information to their needs.
• Information seeking as a complex, holistic process in which researchers have to coordinate a diverse set of techniques to locate, retrieve and process information
• Information processes are best explained in a group context as appeared to examinations of the storage and its retrieval by individuals.

In the midst of fast growing technology and in the advent of the Internet, as an information manager, i come to realize that getting precise and relevant information greatly influence our attitude towards information as indicated by Johnstone and Tate. It gives me confidence on how i understand, process and use information. This is far from what i am supposed to read but for me it has some significant aspect in library service. We know that the end-users perspective is always our first consideration in formulating IS and we devise our plans according to the needs of our clients. Lifting from the text, i just want to state that:

"...how individuals approach and handle information. This includes searching for it, using it, modifying it, sharing it, hoarding it, even ignoring it. Consequently, when we manage information behavior, we're attempting to improve the overall effectiveness of an organization's information environment through concerted action." (Davenport, 1997: 83-84)