Serendipity in information behavior or accidental information encountering

Abstract

Objective. The goal of the paper is to present the concept of serendipity, or information encountering, and to put it in the context of information behavior while considering incentives for its research and providing an overview of literature dealing with the topic of serendipity in information behavior, as well as with its definition. Furthermore, the aim is to review literature focusing on the application of the concept of serendipity in information retrieval, and in information literacy education. Approach / Methodology: A review of relevant literature related to the concept of serendipity, synthesis of previous research and critical analysis of the subject. Findings. The term serendipity is presented in the context of information behavior, as are the related terms such as accidental information discovery, serendipitous information retrieval, and others. Despite the fact that researchers have only recently begun to address serendipity in information science, so far several models of information behavior that include serendipity have been developed, as have the stand-alone serendipity models. An overview of such models is presented in this paper. Originality / Value. This paper presents the synthesis of previous research on the topic of serendipity and describes the latest trends in the research. This is the introduc-tion of the serendipity phenomenon in the context of information behavior to the Croatian scientific and professional community written in Croatian.