Information Experience: Approaches to Theory and Practice

Citation

Brenda Chawner (2015), "Information Experience: Approaches to Theory and Practice", Library Review, Vol. 64 No. 4/5, pp. 397-398. https://doi.org/10.1108/LR-02-2015-0021

To develop effective information sources and systems, librarians and other information professionals need to have a deep understanding of the many and varied ways people search for, contextualise and use information. The emerging field of information experience seeks to understand how people experience information in their daily lives to provide a more holistic framework for developing information platforms and services. Information Experience: Approaches to Theory and Practice is an edited collection of 19 papers presenting a range of perspectives on information experience. The first chapter outlines the goal of the book and discusses information experience from two perspectives: as a research domain and as a research object. Subsequent chapters discuss the theories and methods currently used to conduct research in information experience, how people experience different types of information and how context influences individual information experience. The final chapter outlines an agenda for further research to extend our knowledge of information experience.

The range of examples used throughout the book is extensive, including information in dance and music, teens who create digital content, embodied experiences of emergency services personnel and renal care nurses, female legislators in Uganda and the perspective of a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribal Nation of Native Americans. I was particularly interested in the chapters that focused on the cost of poor information experiences by Julian Jenkins and the expert searcher’s experience of information by Virginia Tucker. Jenkins highlighted the cost of poor communication, whether to customers, staff, senior management or external stakeholders, while Tucker drew attention to the role of expert searchers in facilitating other people’s information experiences.

One of the book’s strengths is the diversity of its contributors who come from Australia, the USA, Asia, Africa and Europe. This provides an international perspective and shows that information experience, whether as research domain or as research object, is relevant throughout the world. Many of the authors, such as Christine Bruce and Annemaree Lloyd, will already be familiar to people who have studied information literacy or information-seeking behaviour, while Helen Partridge is a well-known Australian library and information studies lecturer. The quality of all contributions is evident from the clear writing and level of insight into the findings of the research they discuss. Another strength of the book is the use of varied research approaches to study different aspects of information experience. These include behavioural, phenomenological and social cultural methods, and, overall, the differences result in varying interpretations of the nature of information experience and its impact. These help the reader understand how much information experience differs between individuals, depending on their background, location and knowledge. This provides a depth missing from some of the more traditional work on information behaviour.

Overall, the book makes it clear that information experience research is interdisciplinary in nature. Each chapter includes extensive references, and there is a subject index. Overall, this book provides its readers with a thought-provoking introduction to an emerging research discipline. The book will be of interest not only to researchers interested in the topic but also to practitioners interested in understanding more about the ways in which people make sense of information in different contexts. It is recommended for all information studies collections, particularly those with a research focus.