Information Seeking in Context: Proceedings of an International Conference on Research in Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts, : 14‐16 August 1996, Tampere, Finland

Citation

Smith, A. (1999), "Information Seeking in Context: Proceedings of an International Conference on Research in Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts, : 14‐16 August 1996, Tampere, Finland", Asian Libraries, Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 184-185. https://doi.org/10.1108/al.1999.8.5.184.9

As we move into a global information society, with an increasing supply and demand for information which is growing and diversifying with the new challenges of electronic information, it is timely to examine the relationship between information needs and information systems. The effective design of information systems should be predicated on information needs studies. Information Seeking in Context is the outcome of a conference to consider these issues, in an attempt to move away from a view of users as passive and mechanistic elements in system‐centred design strategies.

The conference attracted a strong group of presenters, including “names” in the area of information needs studies such as Dervin, Kuhlthau, and Wilson. In her keynote paper, Dervin addresses the basic issue of “what is context?”, drawing widely from disciplines such as communications, sociology, philosophy and literature. She concludes that context is “something you swim in, like a fish” ‐ an appropriate metaphor for a conference held in a coastal country peppered with lakes!

The papers present research using a wide range of methodologies: grounded theory, ethnography, case studies, longitudinal studies and even biofeedback. Gluck, Talja and Tuominen consider theoretical and methodological issues, while Leckie and Allen consider modelling approaches. The main groups of papers are concerned with specific information studies, the larger group reporting on a range of job‐related studies, with occupations ranging from municipal officials to high energy theoretical physicists. A smaller but still significant group is concerned with everyday life information seeking, such as Julien’s study of how adolescents obtain career information and Williamson’s research into how Australian senior citizens use the telephone for information seeking.

How will these papers influence the design of information systems? In most cases there is some way to go before information needs studies can make specific recommendations. Allen develops a “person‐in‐situation” model that he feels will influence system design. Wang, in considering the changes in cognitive structures in information seeking, uncovers implications for vocabulary design. However, in most cases the implications of the research lie in the broader information management area rather than in the technical area. Barnes’ paper on the information needs of the increasingly common self‐managed teams is an example of this. Bruce’s work on a conceptual framework for investigating the user orientation of the Internet would be a useful background for the networking community. The real benefit of information needs studies is likely to be in how it changes our view of information seeking, for example by Erdelez’s study of “information encountering” ‐ the accidental discovery of useful or interesting information.

Information Seeking in Context provides a resource that should be drawn on by the many disciplines concerned with information management. To follow the progress of research in the information needs studies community, an outline of the second conference in 1998 is available at http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/groups/ disc/ISIC/isic.html