,QIRUPLQJ 6FLHQFH 6SHFLDO ,VVXH RQ ,QIRUPDWLRQ 6FLHQFH 5HVHDUFK 9ROXPH 1R Human H u m a n Information I n f o r m a t i o n Behavior B e h a v i o r T.D. Wilson University of Sheffield t.d.wilson@sheffield.ac.uk Abstract This paper provides a history and overview of the field of human information behavior, including recent advances in the field and multidisciplinary perspectives. Keywords: human information behavior, information seeking, research, user studies. Introduction Until recently the computer science and information systems communities have equated ���information requirements��� of us- ers with the way users behave in relation to the systems avail- able. In other words, investigations into information require- ments were concerned almost entirely with how a user navi- gated a given system and what he or she could do with the data (rather than information) made available by information systems. This is now beginning to change as ethnographic methods are introduced into the requirements definition stage of systems design, and Beyer and Holtzblatt (1998) have shown the bene- fits. However, even when such methods are employed, the designers appear to be asking, ���How is this person using the system?��� rather than seeking to determine what the individ- ual���s (or the organization���s) information needs may be and how information seeking behavior relates to other, task- oriented behavior. In fact, a concern with what information is needed has been the province not of information systems as a discipline, but of information science and, before that, librari- anship. To these fields we can add consumer behavior research, mar- keting, psychology, health communication research, and a number of other disciplines that take the user as the focus of interest, rather than the system. The aim of this paper is to review some of this research and to point to findings that en- able the system designer to put the design process in the wider context of the user in the organization. Some Definitions Some definitions are needed before we go further. In this pa- per, four terms are used: information behavior, information seeking behavior, information searching behavior and infor- mation use behavior. They are defined as follows: Information Behavior is the totality of human behav- ior in relation to sources and channels of informa- tion, including both active and passive information seeking, and information use. Thus, it includes face- to-face communication with others, as well as the passive reception of information as in, for example, watching TV advertisements, without any intention to act on the information given. Information Seeking Behavior is the purposive seek- ing for information as a consequence of a need to satisfy some goal. In the course of seeking, the indi- vidual may interact with manual information systems (such as a newspaper or a library), or with com- puter-based systems (such as the World Wide Web). Information Searching Behavior is the ���micro-level��� of behavior employed by the searcher in interacting with information systems of all kinds. It consists of all the interactions with the system, whether at the level of human computer interaction (for example, use of the mouse and clicks on links) or at the intellectual level (for example, adopting a Boolean search strat- egy or determining the criteria for deciding which of two books selected from adjacent places on a library shelf is most useful), which will also involve mental acts, such as judging the relevance of data or infor- mation retrieved. Material published as part of this journal, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the publisher of Informing Science. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full cita- tion on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific per- mission and payment of a fee. Contact Editor@inform.nu to re- quest redistribution permission.

+XPDQ ,QIRUPDWLRQ %HKDYLRU 50 Information Use Behavior consists of the physical and mental acts involved in incorporating the infor- mation found into the person's existing knowledge base. It may involve, therefore, physical acts such as marking sections in a text to note their importance or significance, as well as mental acts that involve, for example, comparison of new information with exist- ing knowledge. In all of the above definitions data is subsumed under infor- mation, that is, data may or may not be information depending upon the state of understanding of the information user. A datum such as ���hbar=h/2pi = 6.58*10^-25 GeV s = 1.05*10^- 34 J s��� does not inform me because I have no framework of understanding in which to incorporate the datum. In all of this, the term knowledge is avoided, on the grounds that knowledge is knowable only to the knower. It cannot be transmitted ��� only information about the knowledge I have can be recorded and accessed by another person, and that in- formation can only ever be an incomplete surrogate for the knowledge. Hence, knowledge management systems are noth- ing of the kind ��� they are, at best, information systems, just as information systems in the past used to be nothing but data- processing systems ��� and, in some cases, still are. This paper is concerned mainly with information seeking behavior. Origins of Human Information Seeking Behavior Research The origins of human information seeking behavior are found in work on the users of libraries and in readership studies in general. The post-war increase in the amount of scientific lit- erature which was either newly published or recently released from war-time restrictions led, in 1948, to the Royal Society Scientific Information Conference (1948), which marks the beginning of the modern study of human information seeking behavior. However, the subject goes rather further back in time. For example, The Library Survey (McDiarmid, 1940) referred to various kinds of surveys dating back to 1916 (Ayres & McKinnie, 1916) and with a spate of studies in the 1920s and 1930s. These studies were about library use and, in general, they were concerned less with the needs that led people to the library as a source of information and more with issues such as the social class make-up of the clientele. It would be true to say, however, that the Royal Society Con- ference was the real beginning of a concern with understand- ing how people used information in relation to their work and, particularly, how they used it in science and technology. The significance of 1948 as a start date is evident, for example, in a study led by Menzel at the University of Columbia (Menzel, et al., 1960), in which all of the references are from 1948 on- wards. Another reviewer of the field, Paisley, dated his review (Paisley, 1960) from 1948 and, in a 1948 paper, Urquhart (1948) in reporting on a study of publications borrowed from the Science Museum Library remarked that, "No earlier sur- vey of this type has been traced." The Royal Society confer- ence was followed up ten years later by the International Con- ference on Scientific Information (1958), held in Washington, D.C. A significant number of papers were devoted to, "Litera- ture and Reference Needs of Scientists: Knowledge now available and methods of ascertaining requirements." The studies reported, as virtually all to this date, are con- cerned not so much with human aspects of information use, but with the use of information sources and systems, and in- cluded studies of medical scientists (Herner, 1958), forest sci- entists (Spurr, 1958), and, a feature of the time, a number re- lating to scientists in the atomic energy industry and associ- ated research units (Hogg & Rowland Smith, 1958 Fishenden, 1958 Herner & Herner, 1958) The noted scientist, J.D. Bernal, Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, ended his paper (Bernal, 1958) with a statement that is worth recall- ing: "...a knowledge of the requirements of the different us- ers of scientific information and the uses to which they wish to put the information they secure should be the ultimate determining factor in the designing of meth- ods of storage and retrieval of scientific information." A concern with scientists and their use of information contin- ued to be the main focus of work for many years and, in this era before the application of the computer to information stor- age and retrieval, focused mainly on document use. Fairly typical of the range of studies was a survey carried out in 1965 on behalf of the U.K.���s Advisory Council on Scientific Policy (Anon. 1965). The sample of 6,194 scientists produced a 48.77% response rate. Although the text refers to "information-seeking and -using" rather than information needs, I would describe it as a system study covering the use of sources, especially abstracts, pat- ents, reviews, journal papers, library use, and the use of ab- stracting journals. The over-riding interest was in trying to determine how information sources could be made more use- ful to scientists, and how scientists could be persuaded to make better use of such sources.