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This study seeks to examine, from the viewpoint of 12 adult fiction readers who are members of book clubs, how they go about selecting fiction books to borrow from the public library.

Each participant took part in an individual, semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interview. Using Williamson's Ecological Model of Information Seeking and Use as the conceptual framework, the study examined the role that fiction readers' “internal environments” and “external contexts” played in their book choices.

The selection of fiction books at the public library occurred, to a large extent, outside it. Fiction books were selected as part of everyday life information seeking, influenced by study participants' personal characteristics and circumstances as well as sources from their everyday lives, which typically included family, friends, book club and the mass media. While the public library was the main means by which study participants obtained their fiction books, it was not the first source to which they turned for ideas on what to read.

The study moves from a preoccupation of readers' actions at the public library to examine, more holistically, how everyday life information sources influence their choices of fiction books at the public library. It highlights the purposive and serendipitous dimensions of book selections and also underscores the importance of recognizing trust as a determining factor in book selection.

The purpose of this paper is to describe one of the preliminary results from interviews conducted as part of a PhD study into examining the role of peer and family influences on information-seeking behaviour.

The principal method of data collection was 38 semi-structured critical incident interviews, based on an interview guide and a short questionnaire to collect factual data. Some social network analysis of interviewees’ information sources is considered. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis were used to code the interview transcripts. A naturalistic approach to everyday information seeking is taken.

One of the preliminary findings of this research is that the notion of a new type of information has emerged – disposable information. A new type of information-seeking behaviour is also suggested here for disposable information – disposable information seeking. Disposable information is task specific and likely to only be required by an individual on a one-off basis, causing different everyday life information seeking (ELIS) patterns to emerge. Ultimately, people are only prepared to expend effort to get quality information if they perceive a value or further, continued use of that information.

Because of the research location and participant population, the results may lack transferability. Further research into this area is advised.

The paper has implications about how people may search for and use information in certain situations where information is perceived as relevant to a particular task but unlikely to be needed in the future.

This paper introduces the new concept of disposable information and disposable information-seeking behaviour.

As digital natives, young adults have been found to consider themselves to have good information literacy skills, when in fact many do not. Past research indicates that not only do young adults rely heavily on information obtained from the web and social networks, but also that they may not be able to judge the authenticity, validity, and reliability of digital information, and may share misinformation among themselves. This can be particularly problematic in the context of health information. Two complementary research studies investigated young adults’ information needs and information seeking in support of their personal well-being, and in comparison to academic and other everyday-life information domains. Results show that young adults consider a range of factors as part of their well-being; these include physical and mental health, spirituality, social connections, and financial stability. They engage in information seeking (active and passive) in support of all of these factors. While they were able to identify information resources as more or less credible, they did not necessarily choose highly credible resources most frequently. Interestingly, they did not use social media sources frequently in the context of health information, choosing to deliberately maintain a degree of privacy with respect to health. While there is evidence of some information literacy skills, there remains a need for further and more extensive information literacy education. This should be addressed by librarians from academic, consumer health, public, and school libraries.

The purpose of this study is to investigate information seeking behavior of immigrants in disadvantaged communities in the state of CO, USA, using school choice decisions as a problematic situation. The study investigated the extent to which immigrant families in poor neighborhoods took advantage of school choice policies and the extent to which these decisions were mediated by information seeking activities.

Quantitative study using survey questionnaire was used. The study design used everyday life information seeking behavior (Savolainen, 1995) and information-poverty lived-experiences of poor people (Chatman and Pendelton, 1995) as a framework and theoretical lens, respectively. Parents of school-age children who met the criteria of “poor” based on the federal poverty guideline were recruited to participate in the study.

The study found that only 21 per cent (24 families out of 113) participated in school choice programs. Within the smaller group of parents that took advantage of school choice policy, 72 per cent gathered information before choosing a school, and of this group, about 80 per cent asked friends followed by school visit and a phone call to schools as information sources. Library use as sources of information was also selected by 61 per cent of the respondents. One important finding of this study is that although a majority of the families are aware of school choice policy, their level of participation is low and that is largely due to their economic and life circumstances.

Access to quality education is widely investigated and multiple entities have a stake in it, including parents, policymakers, researchers and school districts. The social implications of this study are significant in that the mere presence and awareness of school choice policy did not translate into increased participation by parents from disadvantaged communities for whom the policy was designed to benefit. Consistent with findings in the extant literature, parents in low socio-economic status also value quality education for their children. To address the issue of low participation in school choice, cities need to work toward strengthening schools and library systems in poor neighborhoods instead of diverting resources away.

Based on two theoretical accounts – i.e. the information-poverty lived-experiences of poor people, or the outsiders, (Chatman, 1999, 1996), and theory of everyday life information seeking (Savolainen, 1995) – this study investigated how immigrants and disadvantaged communities seek, acquire and use information to navigate school choice policy in the city of Aurora, CO. The findings of this study are relevant for educators, policymakers, libraries, school districts, cities, counties and parents to determine the necessary policy measures that are required to increase school choice participation by immigrants and disadvantaged communities.

Despite societal investment in providing health information to young parents, little is known about the health information practices of young parents themselves. The purpose of this paper is to explore young parents’ health information practices in context.

This constructivist grounded theory study investigates the health information practices of young mothers and fathers (age 16-23) in Greater Vancouver, Canada. Data were collected over 16 months via individual interviews with 39 young parents (37 mothers, 2 fathers) and observations at young parent programs. Inductive analysis was iterative with data collection.

Young parent health information practices emerged, clustering around concepts of information seeking, assessment, and use, with sharing conceptualised as a form of use. Many young parents were sophisticated information seekers, and most were highly networked using mobile technology. While access to information was rarely a barrier, assessment of the large quantity of health-related information posed challenges.

These findings are not generalisable to all populations. Newly identified information-seeking practices such as defensive and subversive seeking should be explored further in future research.

Rather than focusing on quantity of information, health and information professionals trying to reach young parents should focus on fostering information literacy skills and building relationships as trusted information providers.

Young parent experiences of social marginalisation influenced their information practices and should be taken into consideration.

This first investigation of young parent information practices can guide services and resources for young parents, suggests that sharing might be conceptualised as a subset of use, and highlights new information-seeking practices by marginalised individuals, such as defensive and subversive seeking.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that scholars in the information behavior (IB) field should embrace the theoretical framework of the everyday to explore a more holistic view of IB.

The paper describes the theory of the everyday and delineates four opportunities offered by scholars of the everyday. The paper concludes with three examples that highlight what a more everyday-focused everyday information behavior might look like.

The theory of the everyday provides a useful theoretical framework to ground research addressing the everyday world as well as useful concepts for analysis and research methodology.

The theoretical framework of the everyday contributes to IB research by providing a theoretical justification for work addressing everyday life as well as useful concepts for analysis. The paper also outlines the benefits of integrating methods influenced by institutional ethnography, a methodology previously used to address the nuances of the everyday world.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the everyday life information seeking behaviours of first-time mothers, as they encounter new, significant and pressing information needs which arise alongside their new responsibilities.

A qualitative approach combined narrative interviews with participatory methods to facilitate engagement and remain sensitive to the social context.

Mothers particularly valued the experiential nature of information received from peers or family members. However, fear of judgement influenced their use of interpersonal sources, both on- and off-line. Their accounts of information seeking contained instances of confusion, tension, conflict and information overload. Feeling under pressure to be “good mothers”, they withheld information needs from others, including healthcare professionals.

There was a notable absence of younger ( < 20 year old) and/or less educated mothers in the study. This corresponds to previous findings which report that very young mothers are reluctant to participate in support groups with older mothers. They remain an understudied and potentially marginalised group.

The findings show how social support groups can mitigate for societal pressures which impact upon mothers’ information behaviour, allowing them to connect and share information within a trusted environment. The study highlights the importance of healthcare and information services professionals remaining sensitive to such pressures. Relatedly, the finding that public libraries are used very little has implications for audience engagement and service provision.

Focused upon first-time mothers’ information behaviours during the early stages of parenthood, the study provides insight into how relationships and experiences with others influence information seeking behaviours. It provides evidence that fear of judgement can influence information seeking behaviour, helping us to understand why some information sources, although considered important and useful, can be used very little.

The purpose of this paper is to build a unified model of human information behavior (HIB) for integrating classical constructs and reformulating the structure of HIB theory.

This paper employs equilibrium perspective from partial equilibrium theory to conceptualization and deduction, starting from four basic assumptions.

This paper develops two models to incorporate previous HIB research approaches into an equilibrium-analysis-oriented information supply-demand (ISD) framework: first, the immediate-task/problem-based and everyday life information-seeking (ELIS)-sense-making approaches are incorporated into the short-term ISD model; second, the knowledge-construction-oriented and ability-based HIB research approaches are elaborated by the long-term ISD model. Relations among HIB theories are illustrated via the method of graphical reasoning. Moreover, these two models jointly reveal the connection between information seeking in immediate problematic situations and long-term ability improvement.

The equilibrium framework enables future research to explore HIB from three perspectives: stages: group the classical concepts (e.g. anomalous state of knowledge, uncertainty) into different stages (i.e. start state, process, goal state) and see how they interact with each other within and across different stages; forces: explore information behaviors and information-related abilities as information supply and demand forces, and see how different forces influence each other and jointly motivate people to pursue the equilibriums between outside world and mental model; and short term and long term: study the connections between short-term information seeking and long-term ability improvement at both theoretical and empirical levels.