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Since the beginning of human existence, humankind has sought, organized and used information as it evolved patterns and practices of human information behaviors. However, the field of human information behavior (HIB) has not heretofore pursued an evolutionary understanding of information behavior. The goal of this exploratory study is to provide insight about the information behavior of various individuals from the past to begin the development of an evolutionary perspective for our understanding of HIB.

This paper presents findings from a qualitative analysis of the autobiographies and personal writings of several historical figures, including Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Darwin, Giacomo Casanova and others.

Analysis of their writings shows that these persons of the past articulated aspects of their HIB's, including information seeking, information organization and information use, providing tangible insights into their information‐related thoughts and actions.

This paper has implications for expanding the nature of our evolutionary understanding of information behavior and provides a broader context for the HIB research field.

This the first paper in the information science field of HIB to study the information behavior of historical figures and begin to develop an evolutionary framework for HIB research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and model the process of organizing personal information in digital form in the context of everyday life.

A background survey, a diary study and two interviews were conducted with each of the 18 participants, who are information users in social science academic environments. In particular, the personal information organization process (PIOP) model was developed by tracking and analyzing 143 organization events.

The PIOP model consists of six stages: initiation, identification, temporary categorization, examination/comparison, selection/modification/creation and categorization. This model also shows actions, thoughts and decisions involved in the organization process, and 19 factors that impact the process.

This study introduces a new model that specifically shows the process of organizing personal information. This study advances our understanding of the process and informs the design and development of systems and applications that support personal information management.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the information behaviors in which scholars regularly engage, in participants’ own words wherever possible, and discuss how those behaviors function in the broader landscape of scholars’ academic practice.

Scholars’ information behaviors were investigated using semi-structured interviews, along with document analysis. Three scholars recognized for significant contributions to their fields were identified from each of the three major divisions of academia (humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences) using intensity sampling, for a total of nine participants. Interviews asked each participant to describe a recent research project from conceptualization to completion, focusing on how scholars engaged with ideas, information resources, tools, and processes.

Information behaviors were found to permeate scholars’ work from conceptualization through publication, and included behaviors such as skimming, reading, data collection and analysis, and writing. Of particular interest are the specific information behaviors that fall into the broader category of information use.

This study uses established definitions of information behaviors to broaden the information behaviors conversation to include the entirety of academic practice. The study shows how scholars from across the academy engage with information throughout the course of their academic work, not just when they are engaged in more traditional information seeking activities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how individuals' personal information organization reflects their social environments in order to understand social aspects of personal information organization.

By using a cognitive sociological approach and based on the personal information organization process (PIOP) model (Oh, 2019), this study investigates the social aspects of personal information organization by analyzing the pre-diary interview, a diary, and two post-diary interviews conducted with each of the 18 information users in social science academic environments.

Social dimensions of personal information organization were found in differences between organizing academic and non-academic files, the way participants identified and made distinctions among files, common folders they created, and with the impact of participants' professional age on personal information organization. This study shows that information organization is a process of construction and that the participants' social foundations are reflected in the way they view and organize their files.

This study makes a unique contribution to the field by explaining the social aspects of personal information organization. The findings of this study deepen our knowledge of personal information organization by providing different ways to understand how and why people organize their files in certain ways, and by showing that this is not just individual behavior. In practice, this study provides insight into the design of applications and tools that support personal information management of people in specific social environments.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical discussion of the paucity of research on information behaviour of information providers and to propose a framework for investigating the emerging area of provider information behaviour.

The approach takes the form of a conceptual analysis and literature review.

A multidisciplinary framework is provided to form the basis of further exploration of provider information behaviour.

There are various types of information providers and they provide opportunities for exploring and comparing their range of information activities and developing models of provider information behaviour.

The paper argues for a new perspective to the study of information behaviour. The paucity of research on internal users of information has not matched those on external users of information over the years. An exploration of provider information behaviour together with its internal impact can provide insights which will help organisations better understand best practice, predict effects of new behaviours during periods of change and make informed decisions. It will also aid in the development of the teaching of information and library skills.

The liberal arts hobby is a leisure pursuit that entails the systematic and fervent pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the liberal arts hobby as a setting for information behavior research.

The method of interdisciplinary translation work is used to relate existing research from the specialties of leisure studies, adult education, and information behavior. Drawing from leisure studies, the liberal arts hobby is presented within the context of the serious leisure perspective, a theoretical framework of leisure. Also, relevant research.

The basic informational features of the liberal arts hobby and adult learning project are discussed in terms of three issues of current interest within information behavior scholarship. The issues are: first, social metatheory and the ideal level of analysis; second, time and information behavior; and third, information behavior in pleasurable and profound contexts.

Research into everyday life, serious leisure and hobbies is extended and methodological tools are provided.

Information professionals, such as public librarians or systems designers, will have a better understanding of the information experience of a popular hobby group and be better able to meet their information needs.

Awareness and understanding of the liberal arts hobby will be increased across the field of information science, thereby creating a better alignment between the field and society.

The paper is the first to establish an interdisciplinary starting point for information behavior research in the liberal arts hobby.

This chapter explores how early theorising about information behaviour and the emergence of conceptual modelling in information behaviour research had its beginnings in thinking that was taking place in the very late 1970s and early 1980s in Europe and the USA. Some of these ideas were presented in papers that are very familiar and much cited, but others in papers which may be less familiar and, consequently, may not be much cited, but which together contribute to explain why the rapid development in conceptual thinking about, as opposed to the simple empirical study of, information behaviour took place from that period to the present. Four dimensions are identified which together underpin the emergence of conceptual modelling in contemporary information behaviour research. The four dimensions are (1) the adoption of a social science perspective, (2) a qualitative as opposed to a quantitative orientation, (3) a focus on the modelling of information behaviour and (4) a concern with empirical validation and exemplification in the development of such models. These four dimensions came together to provide a tacit rather than explicit framework for subsequent theorising about information behaviour, and in particular underpinned studies involved the conceptual modelling of information behaviour. Information behaviour research then began to develop conceptual models very different from the empiricism of earlier studies, and, at the same time exhibited a strong concern for the exemplification or validation of these models in empirical studies. This combination of theoretically based conceptual modelling and empirical exemplification and validation together gave much of the character to information behaviour research from the later 1970s and early 1980s, an influence that extends to the present.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether user needs and preferences in organising electronic information are properly identified by records managers when implementing folder structures in electronic document and records management systems (EDRMS). The intention is also to find out to what extent user needs and preferences correspond to records management best practices.

The research was designed as a case study of a specific team at the European Central Bank. In order to look at the user needs and preferences, the research is based on the qualitative analysis of data obtained via semi‐structured interviews and direct observation.

The case study shows that users' objectives are very similar to records management objectives. Moreover, their needs and preferences stem from a number of factors that can be identified and categorised.

The research was subject to severe limitations in terms of resources, in particular the time and tools available. Similar studies should be conducted involving diverse teams at different organisations in order to fine‐tune the proposed principles and test their general applicability. Further studies could benefit from the use of IT tools to observe user behaviours.

Based on the findings, guidance principles are proposed in order to improve user acceptance of folder structures.

The paper aims to raise awareness in the records management world of the necessity of prioritising user needs as the best way to achieve records management objectives. Records managers should also work closely with IT experts in the design of EDRMS.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of wearable health and fitness trackers in everyday life, and users’ motivations and their understanding and use of the data derived from devices, and understand the results using the lens of information behaviours.

The study used a qualitative, constructionist approach, based on 21 interviews with users of a range of wearable activity trackers used for health and fitness.

Findings show that the lifelogging devices have become companion tools that enable users to take information from their bodily indicators and make some decisions about their health and fitness, and also track the results when they act on it, thus giving them a sense of gratification and a sense of control over their own health.

The findings have implications on how health professionals can talk to their lifelogging patients about how to deal with and understand the information provided by their activity-tracking devices. Some participants in the study already discuss these data regularly with their health professionals.

As the self-tracking practices attract wide range research interests from human–computer interaction, information systems, digital sociology, health informatics and marketing among others. This study provides important everyday information-seeking perspective that contributes to the understanding of the practices of how people make sense of the data, how the data improves their wellbeing, i.e. physical health improvement or fitness, and implications to users health behaviour. Additionally the study adds to the lifelogging literature through a constructionist, qualitative approach rather than a technological deterministic approach.

This is the fourth part of a five‐part series, based on research done on 17 live sessions in which management teachers and trainers were interacting with groups of learners. Parts 3, 4 and 5 are all concerned with “facilitating behaviour” (defined more fully in Part 3). This behaviour was identified within episodes which occurred during longer sessions. These episodes were “productive” since they were directly associated with learning reported by learners. There were, of course, many other unproductive episodes where no learning was reported.