The information-related
behaviour of emerging artists and
designers
Inspiration and guidance for new practitioners
Helen Mason and Lyn Robinson
Department of Information Science, City University London, London, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to report an empirical study of the information-related behaviour of
emerging artists and designers. It also aims to add to understanding of the information behaviour of
the group both as practising artists (a little understood category of information users), and also as
“new practitioners”.
Design/methodology/approach – A literature analysis is used to guide creation of an online
questionnaire, eliciting both qualitative and quantitative data. A total of 78 practising artists
participated, all having graduated in the seven years prior to the survey.
Findings – The group have generally the same information practices as more established artists.
They place reliance on internet and social networks, while also using traditional printed tools and
libraries. Browsing is important, but not a predominant means of accessing information. Inspiration is
found from a very diverse and idiosyncratic set of sources, often by serendipitous means. Their status
as emergent practitioners means that their information behaviour is governed by cost factors, and by
needs for career advice and interaction with peers.
Research limitations/implications – The study group are a convenience sample, all having
access to the internet. No observation or interviews were carried out.
Practical implications – The results will provide guidance to academic and public librarians
serving artist users, and to those providing career advice to them. It will also be valuable to those
providing services to “new practitioners” in any field.
Originality/value – This is one of a very few papers reporting empirical studies of the information
behaviour of artists, and has the largest sample size of any such study. It is one of a very few papers
considering the information needs and behaviour of new practitioners.
Keywords Arts, Visual media, Information retrieval, Individual behaviour, Internet, Social networks
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
This paper reports a study of the information-related behaviour of “emerging artists”.
This group of “new practitioners” comprises those who have recently completed formal
education in art or design, are no longer in formal education or a formal career
structure, and are engaged in building up their own practice of the arts. The paper
derives from an MA thesis (Mason 2009), which provides fuller details.
This is an interesting group to investigate on two counts: because they are artists,
and because they are new practitioners.
Studies of the information practices of artists show them to an unusual and not well
understood group, with a peculiarly wide and personal range of information needs, a
requirement for a very diverse set of resources, and a unique need for information for
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
Information-
related
behaviour
159
Received 1 March 2010
Revised 28 April 2010
Accepted 5 May 2010
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 67 No. 1, 2011
pp. 159-180
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/00220411111105498

“inspiration”, as well as for more conventional technical, practical and marketing
information.
The information-related behaviour of “emerging practitioners” or “new
professionals” has been rarely examined explicitly. It may be inferred from age
factors in a professional group, for example, the observations of different reading
behaviours of young academic faculty members (Tenopir et al., 2009). Or it may be seen
in an examination of the behaviour of those with “trainee” status in a particular
professional or occupation, for example junior doctors (Urquhart et al., 1999). These
groups, however, are different are very different from emerging artists, who typically
have no structure of supervision, mentoring or development, and no access to
specialised library/information services. They are the epitome of the emerging
independent practitioner.
This study therefore has two aims. The first is to add to understanding of the
information-related behaviour of artists, where the literature presents an incomplete,
and to an extent contradictory, picture. The second is to examine emerging artists, in
particular, to assess how their behaviour compares to that of artists in general, and to
consider them as archetypical “new practitioners”, in information terms.
The information-related behaviour of artists
Despite Cobbledick’s (1996) much quoted point that there are more professional artists
than there are lawyers in the USA, the information-related behaviour of artists has
been little studied. Such studies as have been done are typically anecdotal in nature,
rather then systematic surveys, and limited to small numbers of subjects. This has
been variously attributed to the facts that artists are not a clear professional group,
that they are difficult to identify and contact for purposes of research, and that they are
not thought of as being significant “consumers” of information, and information
products (Andersen, 1994; Stam, 1995a, b; Cowan, 2004). Most of the studies which
have been done have focused on students or teachers of art or art history, rather than
on practising artists, and are therefore likely to show rather different purposes and
behaviours. Studies which have focused wholly or partly on practitioners are those of
Cowan (2004), Van Zijl and Gericke (2002), Visick et al. (2006), and Hemmig (2009); none
have looked specifically at the emerging practitioner.
Furthermore, most examinations of artists’ information behaviour, following the
example of the early studies by Toyne (1975, 1977), have focused specifically on
information access through library services, necessarily pointing out specific forms of
resource and access. Cowan (2004) criticises several early studies on the grounds that
they assume that all meaningful information seeking should happen in a library, and
that artists typically do not use libraries properly.
There has also been an assumption, not entirely justified, that artists behave as
“typical humanities scholars”, or even as “the humanist’s humanist” (Hemmig 2008)in
their information behaviour, following the patterns identified by authors such as Budd
(1989), Watson-Boone (1994) and Barrett (2005). While this may be so, at an extent at
least, for art students and professors, it is unlikely to hold for practising artists.
Nonetheless, despite these limitations, some insight has been gained into the issues
involved in artists’ information behaviour.
The only recent review of these studies is that due to Hemmig (2008). His analysis of
the literature suggests that four purposes, which he notes to be “coherent but
JDOC
67,1
160