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In order to understand the totality, diversity and richness of human information behavior, increasing research attention has been paid to examining serendipity in the context of information acquisition. However, several issues have arisen as this research subfield has tried to find its feet; we have used different, inconsistent terminology to define this phenomenon (e.g. information encountering, accidental information discovery, incidental information acquisition), the scope of the phenomenon has not been clearly defined and its nature was not fully understood or fleshed-out.

In this paper, information encountering (IE) was proposed as the preferred term for serendipity in the context of information acquisition.

A reconceptualized definition and scope of IE was presented, a temporal model of IE and a refined model of IE that integrates the IE process with contextual factors and extends previous models of IE to include additional information acquisition activities pre- and postencounter.

By providing a more precise definition, clearer scope and richer theoretical description of the nature of IE, there was hope to make the phenomenon of serendipity in the context of information acquisition more accessible, encouraging future research consistency and thereby promoting deeper, more unified theoretical development.

Information behaviour exists in two forms: first when information is sought with a clear purpose and second, when we encounter it accidentally or serendipitiously. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the information encountering (IE) and encountered information sharing (EIS) behaviour of research students in an online environment.

The quantitative research approach was applied to carry out this research. The authors selected 120 MPhil and PhD research students (who research information as a part of their assignments) from six departments as sample for the study. Out of 120 research students, 93 returned the filled questionnaires. The collected data were analysed in SPSS version 22. First, descriptive statistics to estimate the IE and sharing behaviour; and later one-way ANOVA and post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD tests were applied to investigate the EIS based on the frequency of internet usage.

The findings indicate that the mean scores of the responses remain between “sometimes” and “often”, in all the behavioural sub-constructs of the model of IE, i.e. noticing, stopping, examining, capturing, storing (keeping), sharing and returning. The extended model proved to be valid in an online environment in the context of Pakistani culture. While estimating EIS, the results indicated significantly higher sharing and large effect size among the research students who used the internet from 11 to 15 h a week than those who used it between 6 and 10 h.

Keeping in view the results the research students and parent organisations (universities) working for the improvement of research ranking and research students’ better performance, should know that research information is not only actively acquired but also huge amount of information is accidentally encountered and shared. Therefore, the universities should train their research students to enhance the information sharing of encountered information. That will promote the research culture and may enhance the speed of learning, research work and ultimately result in competitive advantage, without any extra effort.

This is the first study of its type in Pakistan to measure the IE behaviour of research students in an online environment. Moreover, it is the first study which investigates the extended model of IE using a quantitative approach in the Pakistani research environment, which originated in Japan via qualitative research approach.

This study investigated the moderating effect of organizational knowledge management performance on the sharing and use of information encountered by serendipity within the organization.

The authors surveyed 274 medical librarians from the top 100 medical schools.

Individual information encountering predicted information encountering at work, which, in turn, predicted organizational sharing of encountered information. When the propensity to encounter information was high, then organizational knowledge management performance moderated the effect between organizational encountering and organizational sharing of information. Encountered information at work was only present when high organizational knowledge management performance was in place.

This finding helps information behavior researchers discover the transfer of behaviors from everyday life to organizational environments.

It shows the need for greater support for information encounterers at work and the role of knowledge management, which may enhance their contribution to the organizational objectives.

Information encountering involves finding information by chance. Studies on information encountering have not focused on work settings and if the individual propensity to encounter information translates to organizational settings. Also, the relationship between information encountering and organizational knowledge management has not been studied so far.

One of the primary challenges of conducting information encountering (IE) research is the difficulty in capturing people's IE experiences. The purpose of this paper is to develop a general description framework of IE experiences as guidance for participants to record diary entries in diary studies of IE.

340 descriptions of IE incidents were collected from 18 previous IE studies as secondary data. A thematic analysis of the secondary data engendered a general description framework of IE experiences composed of 9 main themes and 31 sub-themes. The framework was then applied in a diary study to investigate Generation Z's online IE behavior.

The nine main themes of the framework, including “environment”, “foreground activity”, “stimulus noticed”, “reaction to stimulus”, “content examined”, “interaction with encountered information”, “value of experience”, “pre-encountering emotional state”, and “post-encountering emotional state”, were used to create a diary questionnaire for collecting IE incidents. The sub-themes were refined and organized into a coding scheme for the content analysis of the incidents collected. The diary study collected 255 valid IE incidents which were analyzed based on three phases, that is, pre-encountering, encountering, and post-encountering.

The value of this study consists in its methodological contributions. First, it makes creative use of secondary data accumulated in the literature and derives from the thematic analysis a general framework which people follow to describe their IE experiences. Second, it demonstrates the great potential of diaries for data collection in IE research through the successful application of the general description framework of IE experiences in a diary study. Third, the diary questionnaire created based on the framework provides sufficient guidance in eliciting complete and detailed IE incidents.

Literature divides information behaviours into two forms: first, interacting information with a purpose in mind and second, encountering accidently in three environments including person to person, analogue and online environment. However, the unique information encountering and encountered information keeping behaviour of social sciences research students of Asian culture in an online environment remained unexplored. Therefore, the present study is designed to investigate the research information encountering and encountered information keeping behaviour of the students of social sciences in an online environment.

The quantitative approach and survey technique were used for the study. The research students were approached using a multi-stage total population sampling technique. In total, 233 returned questionnaires were entered and analysed in SPSS (version 22). Descriptive (frequencies and percentages) and inferential statistical techniques (t-tests, one-way ANOVA, effect sizes, correlations and regression) were applied to meet the objectives of the study.

The results of the study indicate that the respondents whether male or female, of MPhil or PhD, whichever frequency to use the Internet, often encounter research information. However, those who use the Internet for general browsing encounter more than those who purposively. This makes a change to the model of information encountering that the users encounter information while generally browsing and not only while actively working on foreground information searching. Moreover, the research students prefer to use simple tools on complex software based for keeping the encountered research information. The information if kept properly for use, may be useful in the course of research, ease its tasks and result in increasing the speed of research productivity.

The present study has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically first, it fills the literature gap regarding research information encountering and its keeping and second, it came up with a proof that the researcher not only encounter research information while foreground information searching but while generally browsing also. Hence, information encountering model is equally applicable to research students who generally browse. Regarding practical implications, the study identifies that the research students prefer to keep using simple tools. Hence, information literacy instructors, either librarians or continuous education program designers are advised to incorporate instructional programs on the use of complex software-based tools for keeping information.

This is the first study in non-Western countries which investigated the research information encountering behaviour of social sciences MPhil and PhD students. The preferred tools to keep the encountered research information are first time identified in the literature.

In several existing studies of Information Encountering (IE), a recurring sub-phenomenon of serendipity arises that indicates the potential for certain unexpected encounters with information to be transformative. The author labels this sub-phenomenon Transformative Information Encountering (TIE), deriving its definition from an application of Transformative Education (TE) theory to existing understandings of IE. This paper aims to discuss the potential for librarians and archivists to promote TIE through everyday practices.

After defining and identifying TIE in existing studies of IE, this article will put models of IE in conversation with theories of TE and propose ways in which TIE may arise in the everyday work of librarians and archivists.

In TE theory, there are three phases of the process of critical premise reflection that may be especially relevant to the work of libraries and archives. These are a disorienting dilemma (phase 1); recognition that the process of transformation is shared (phase 4); and acquiring knowledge and skills (phase 7). Each of these aligns with aspects of IE models.

Understanding how TIE might inform everyday Library and Information Science (LIS) work may increase the positive impact cultural institutions have on the communities they serve.

While several IE studies have suggested the existence of TIE as a sub-phenomenon, none thus far have attempted to define it or apply an understanding of it to LIS work.

Websites, search engines, recommender systems, artificial intelligence and digital libraries have the potential to support serendipity for unexpected interaction with information and ideas which would lead to favored information discoveries. This paper aims to explore the current state of research into serendipity particularly related to information encountering.

This study provides bibliometric review of 166 studies on serendipity extracted from the Web of Science. Two bibliometric analysis tools HisCite and RStudio (Biblioshiny) are used on 30 years of data. Citation counts and bibliographic records of the papers are assessed using HisCite. Moreover, visualization of prominent sources, countries, keywords and the collaborative networks of authors and institutions are assessed using RStudio (Biblioshiny) software. A total of 166 papers on serendipity were found from the period 1989 to 2022, and the most influential authors, articles, journals, institutions and countries among these were determined.

The highest numbers of 11 papers were published in the year 2019. Makri and Erdelez are the most influential authors for contributing studies on serendipity. “Journal of Documentation” is the top-ranking journal. University College London is the prominent affiliation contributing highest number of studies on serendipity. The UK and the USA are the prominent nations contributing highest number of research. Authorship pattern for research on serendipity reveals involvement of single author in majority of the studies. OA Green model is the most preferred model for archiving of research articles by the authors who worked on serendipity. In addition, majority of the research outputs have received a citation ranging from 0 to 50.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper may be the first bibliometric analysis on serendipity research using bibliometric tools in library and information science studies. The paper would definitely open new avenues for other serendipity researchers.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy. It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts. The selected bibliography is useful to efficiently keep up with trends in library instruction for busy practitioners, library science students and those wishing to learn about information literacy in other contexts.

This article annotates 424 English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, theses and reports on library instruction and information literacy published in 2021. The sources were selected from the EBSCO platform for Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and WorldCat, published in 2021 that included the terms “information literacy,” “library instruction,” or “information fluency” in the title, abstract or keywords. The sources were organized in Zotero. Annotations summarize the source, focusing on the findings or implications. Each source was categorized into one of seven pre-determined categories: K-12 Education, Children and Adolescents; Academic and Professional Programs; Everyday Life, Community, and the Workplace; Libraries and Health Information Literacy; Multiple Library Types; and Other Information Literacy Research and Theory.

The paper provides a brief description of 424 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy within 2021.

Serendipitous information discovery has become a unique and important approach to discovering and obtaining information, which has aroused a growing interest for serendipity in human information behavior. Despite numerous publications, few have systematically provided an overview of current state of serendipity research. Consequently, researchers and practitioners are less able to make effective use of existing achievements, which limits them from making advancements in this domain. Against this backdrop, we performed a systematic literature review to explore the world of serendipity and to recapitulate the current states of different research topics.

Guided by a prior designed review protocol, this paper conducted both automatic and manual search for available studies published from January 1990 to December 2020 on seven databases. A total of 207 serendipity studies closely related to human information behavior form the literature pool.

We provide an overview of distinct aspects of serendipity, that is research topics, potential benefits, related concepts, theoretical models, contextual factors and data collection methods. Based on these findings, this review reveals limitations and gaps in the current serendipity research and proposes an agenda for future research directions.

By analyzing current serendipity research, developing a knowledge framework and providing a research agenda, this review is of significance for researchers who want to find new research questions or re-align current work, for beginners who need to quickly understand serendipity, and for practitioners who seek to cultivate serendipity in information environments.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between workplace incivility (WIN) and ineffectual employee silence (IES) through rationalized knowledge-hiding (RKH) and regulation of emotion, drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) and social exchange theory (SET).

The study employed a cross-sectional design and used the partial least squares (PLS)-structural equational modeling (SEM) algorithm to test the reliability, validity of the measurement and hypotheses using a sample of 252 information technology (IT) professionals.

The results demonstrate that experienced WIN and RKH behavior significantly exacerbate IES. On the other side, the regulation of emotion decreases the negative influence of WIN and aids in the reduction of IES.

The study suggests that organizations should take appropriate measures to alleviate WIN, which might prevent concealing information/knowledge, IES and encourage employees to practice regulation of emotion.

The study significantly contributes to the relationship between uncivil behavior and ES and expands the knowledge on the mediating roles of RKH and regulation of emotion.