Human information needs, characteristics, and contexts.

Title:  Human information needs, characteristics, and contexts.

Autor: Marchionini, Gary; Plaisant, Catherine; Komlodi, Anita Identifier: http://library.nyu.edu/diglib/standards.users.html

Description: this article presents studies of what types of information needs people bring to libraries. Needs assessment research in information science recognizes that there are different levels of needs
Subject: assessment research, information science, users needs

Format: html

Type: text

Language: english

Relation:

Belkin, N. (1980). Anomalous states of knowledge as a basis for information retrieval. Canadian Journal of Information Science, 5, 133-143.

Braha, D. & Maimon, O. (1997). The design process: Properties, paradigms, and structure. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics—Part A: Systems and Humans, 27(2). 146-166.

Brooks, F. (1975). The mythical man-month: Essays on software engineering. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Dervin, B. & Nilan, M. (1986) Information needs and uses. In M. Williams (Ed.).Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (Vol 21, pp. 3-33), White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industries.

Ding, W., Marchionini, G., & Tse. T. (1997). Previewing video data: Browsing key frames at high rates using a video slide show interface. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Research, Development, and Practice in Digital Libraries, (Tsukuba, Japan) p. 151-158.

  Extract of this article

People is a term taken here to include the entire range of individuals, groups, and communities who have a stake in a digital library. The information needs of individuals have long been studied by researchers in marketing, education, and information science. There is a long history of studies of what types of information needs people bring to libraries (e.g., Krikelas, 1983; Marchant, 1991; Paisley, 1980; and Wilson, 1981). Dervin & Nilan’s (1986) review of the information needs literature dichotomizes system-oriented and user-oriented approaches to determining information needs. They criticize the system-oriented approach as too narrow to actually identify user needs and propose an approach that attempts to directly assess people’s information needs. Needs assessment research in information science recognizes that there are different levels of needs (e.g., Taylor, 1962, specified visceral, conscious, formalized, and compromised levels), that users may not be able to articulate their true needs (e.g., Belkin, 1980, noted that users often bring anomalous states of knowledge to a search task), and that needs change as information seeking progresses.