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Targeting the common functions of the Zhejiang Library website, elderly individuals were invited to complete six experimental tasks on the improved website interfaces, and subjective data (PAD emotion scale and usability evaluation) and objective data (eye movement data) were recorded to verify the effects of graphic layout and navigation position on the information-seeking experience of elderly individuals.

This study analyzes the effect of the graphic layout and navigation position of the Zhejiang Library’s website interface on the emotional state, perceived usability and information-seeking time of elderly individuals, with the aim of providing guidance and suggestions for the elderly-oriented reform of the public library website.

The experimental results show that the graphic layout has a significant effect on the emotional state and perceived usability of elderly individuals, and the navigation position has a significant effect on the information-seeking time; the interaction between graphic layout and navigation position exerts a significant effect on the information-seeking time of elderly individuals. The eye movement data show that elderly individuals have a better information-seeking experience when the top navigation bar and image-text matched arrangement are used for the interface layout.

This study adopts a new approach combining subjective data and eye movement data to evaluate the effect of the public library website’s interface layout on the information-seeking experience for older people. The findings can provide a theoretical basis and methodological support for the elderly-oriented reform of public library websites. They can also provide scientific design suggestions for age-friendly interface layouts of other Internet products and service applications.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of information seeking in digital libraries from the perspectives of the Technology Acceptance Model and flow experience, as well as the consequences from the perspectives of self-efficacy in getting information and individual performance.

A research model is developed and tested using questionnaires and, partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The effect of flow experience on information seeking in digital libraries is the largest one. Meanwhile, flow experience fully mediates the effects of ease of use and usefulness on information seeking in digital libraries which further leads to self-efficacy in getting information and individual performance.

Librarians should help users to experience more stable and sustainable flow by providing dependable, prompt, personalized and professional service to them. Librarians should try their best to provide diversified user training so as to guide potential users to seek information in digital libraries.

This study contributes to the theoretical development of the structural model exploring information seeking in digital libraries, presenting a new view for digital library research and practice alike.

This paper aims to investigate the help-seeking behaviour of users during their information-seeking in a digital library, studying the kind of help-seeking situations, help requests and using help resources with different interactive levels. For this purpose, users’ help-seeking behaviour (postgraduate students at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad) was investigated based on different stages of Marchionini’s adapted model.

This research was performed using the mixed method. In total, 38 postgraduate students at Ferdowsi University were selected by Stratified Purposive Sampling method as samples. Selecting a digital library based on considered factors, preparing help resources and designing research scenario were made as the preparation stages of performing the study. The tools used for collecting and analysing data were questionnaires, think aloud protocol and Morae software.

Some of the considerable results of this research were recording the help-seeking signs in all four main stages of the adapted information-seeking model. However, in the search stage, in which a user enters the search process practically, the need for help-seeking was recorded more than it in other stages. Results also confirmed that most help requests by users were for executive help which were rooted in users’ knowledge shortcomings and their passivity in help-seeking process. Because of the flexibility and speed of providing responses, participants also tended to interact with more interactive and flexible help resources and assessed this interaction more useful.

According to the findings of this research, the adapted information-seeking model used in this study was completed, and a theoretical model for information-seeking in a digital library was suggested. In this model, help-seeking is considered as a supportive and complementary behaviour for information-seeking behaviour which begins in help-seeking situations and continues to solve problems in these situations.

This paper aims to argue that different types of uncertainty are associated with information seeking and retrieval (IS&R), and that, with the proliferation of new and different search tools, channels and sources, uncertainty, whether positive or negative, continues to be a significant factor in the search process. The paper aims to report on one part of an ongoing research that aims to study correlations among a series of information‐seeking activities and information‐seeking problems that cause uncertainty amongst users in academic environment.

An online questionnaire is used to collect data from users in the higher education sector. Quantitative analysis is carried out on the data collected through an online questionnaire distributed through eight online mailing lists comprising a total of 3,607 registered users. A total of 668 responses are returned from three categories of respondents: academic staff, research staff and research students. Pearson's correlation coefficient is used to study correlation among the activities and problems that cause uncertainty in IS&R.

This research shows that uncertainty may occur in course of a number of information‐seeking activities, and may also be created because of some problems associated with information seeking. Some of the activities and problems that caused uncertainty have significant correlations. There is also a correlation between information‐seeking activities and gender and disciplines, though there is little correlation between information‐seeking activities and age, information and communication technology (ICT) skills, and user categories. There is also a correlation between information‐seeking problems and ICT skills, gender and user categories, but there is less correlation between information‐seeking problems and age. Information‐seeking activities and information‐seeking problems that cause uncertainty have a significant correlation with disciplines and gender. Furthermore, it is noted that information‐seeking activities caused less uncertainty for users in the discipline of computer and information sciences compared to the other chosen disciplines such as business and management, and arts and humanities.

This research for the first time aimed to study which information‐seeking activities and problems cause uncertainty and how they are correlated.

The purpose of this paper is to show that uncertainty may be caused not only by a knowledge gap in the mind of a user with respect to a given subject or topic, but also by the various complexities associated with the information seeking and retrieval (IS&R) process in a digital environment.

Both quantitative and qualitative studies were conducted to collect data from users in the higher education sector regarding whether or not they experienced uncertainty in relation to the IS&R process. Analysis: a correlation analysis was undertaken to establish whether there were any relationships between information-seeking activities and information-seeking problems.

The findings of this research show that uncertainty existed at different stages of the IS&R process amongst users. It was established that uncertainty was caused by a number of information-seeking activities and information-seeking problems, and that such uncertainty could continue over the course of successive search sessions, leading to the proposal of a new model of uncertainty.

The proposed model of uncertainty should contribute to a better understanding of the issues related to IS&R in a digital environment.

A number of benefits could be realised in systems design from the application of this model in terms of reducing the negative impact of uncertainty, while at the same time helping users to gain from the positive aspects of uncertainty in IS&R.

The general consensus is that uncertainty is a mental state of users reflecting a gap in knowledge which triggers an IS&R process, and that the gap is reduced as relevant information is found, and thus that the uncertainty disappears as the search process concludes. However, in the present study it is argued that some form of uncertainty is always associated with some part of the IS&R process and that it also fluctuates throughout the IS&R process. Users may therefore feel uncertain at any stage of the IS&R process and this may be related to: the initial information need and expression of that need, the search process itself, including identification of relevant systems, services and resources; and the assessment of, and reaction to, the results produced by the search process. Uncertainty may be unresolved, or even increase, as the user progresses, often iteratively, through the IS&R process and may remain even after its completion, resulting in what may be called a persistent uncertainty. In other words, this research hypothesises that, in addition to the uncertainty that triggers the information search process (Wilson et al., 2000), users suffer from varying degrees of uncertainty at every stage of the information search and retrieval process, and that in turn, triggers different information-seeking behaviours.

The aim of this paper is to investigate predictors of online medical research by nurses.

A cross‐sectional study was conducted and a representative sample of nurses was selected from three Taiwanese hospitals from 1 January to 31 March 2007. A total of 274 female nurses completed the questionnaire.

The results indicate that the expectancy value of internet characteristics, attitude towards online information seeking and perceived credibility of online information significantly and positively predict online information‐seeking behaviour in nurses. Specifically, the multiple hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the perceived credibility of online information is the strongest predictive variable of online information seeking.

The findings of this study suggest that an important task for professional health organisations is to educate nurses in assessing the reliability of medical information found on the web, such as looking for credible institutional sites, verifying available information with that from other sources or sites, and using common sense.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the picture of strategies for information searching and seeking by reviewing the conceptualizations on this topic in the field of library and information science (LIS).

The study draws on Henry Mintzberg’s idea of strategy as plan and strategy as pattern in a stream of actions. Conceptual analysis of 57 LIS investigations was conducted to find out how researchers have approached the above aspects in the characterizations of information search and seeking strategies.

In the conceptualizations of information search and information seeking strategies, the aspect of strategy as plan is explicated most clearly in text-book approaches describing the steps of rational web searching. Most conceptualizations focus on the aspect of strategy as pattern in a stream of actions. This approach places the main emphasis on realized strategies, either deliberate or emergent. Deliberate strategies indicate how information search or information seeking processes were oriented by intentions that existed previously. Emergent strategies indicate how patterns in information seeking and seeking developed in the absence of intentions, or despite them.

The conceptualizations of the shifts in information seeking and searching strategies were excluded from the study. Similarly, conceptualizations of information search or information retrieval tactics were not examined.

The study pioneers by providing an in-depth analysis of the ways in which the key aspects of strategy are conceptualized in the classifications and typologies of information seeking and searching strategies. The findings contribute to the elaboration of the conceptual space of information behaviour research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine information seeking behaviour targeted to music information seeking by amateur musicians, accompanied with empirical evidence from a survey on a community concert band. While several studies in the literature have examined information seeking in the context of hedonic motives (e.g. entertainment oriented), music information can also be used for utilitarian purposes by providing amateur musicians the necessary tools to improve their skill and become better in their practice.

A review of the literature on music information seeking and an empirical study on members of an amateur concert band are presented. The theoretical construct of the survey is informed by Wilsons’ macro model of information seeking behaviour. This is employed in order to understand information motives and needs, as well as obstacles in information seeking of musicians.

Musicians seek information not only for entertainment but for educational purposes as well as for the acquisition of certain music works. The use of the internet for information seeking as well as the gradual adoption of online social networks has provided access to new musical resources within the digital music networks.

A person-centred approach for information seeking behaviour is studied and adapted for musicians. The survey provides new information behaviour results for designers of music information spaces which in turn are creating a new model of the relationship between music and society.

Information seeking does not occur in a vacuum but invariably is motivated by some wider task. It is well accepted that to understand information seeking we must understand the task context within which it takes place. Writing is amongst the most common tasks within which information seeking is embedded. This paper considers how writing can be understood in order to account for embedded information seeking. Following Sharples, the paper treats writing as a design activity and explore parallels between the psychology of design and information seeking. Significant parallels can be found and ideas from the psychology of design offer explanations for a number of information seeking phenomena. Next, a design‐oriented representation of writing tasks as a means of providing an account of phenomena such as information seeking uncertainty and focus refinement is developed. The paper illustrates the representation with scenarios describing the work of newspaper journalists.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for creative information seeking drawing upon Weisberg's argument that creativity exists in everyone, and mapping the creative process described in the holistic model of creativity to the information seeking activities identified in the behavioural model of information seeking.

Using scenarios of information seeking behaviour, mappings between the creative process and information seeking activities were refined and six stages for creative information seeking were proposed. Scenarios were also used to provide theoretical justifications for stages in creative information seeking.

Evidence gathered from the scenarios seemed to indicate that the type of information seeking task may have an impact on the extent to which an information seeker exhibits all stages in the framework. This is on‐going research. Part II of this paper aims to conduct empirical studies and gather evidence to verify the framework and examine this observation in more detail.

Proposes a framework for creative information seeking.