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Framing a discussion on paradigm shift(s) in the field of information
Abstract
In this opinion paper, we frame a discussion on paradigm shift(s) in the field of information. We believe that in this astonishing historical moment of new directions and new opportunities both the existing paradigms and conceptual models in the field of information can benefit from re-examination to stay current with the times. We propose a framework articulating key narratives associated with the why, what, how, and who dimensions to discuss paradigm shift(s). The purpose of this opinion paper is to initiate dialogues on groundbreaking ideas and innovative solutions as well as support research that addresses contemporary challenges in the field of information.
... In the context of rapid advancements in big data and information technology, scientific research methods are gradually shifting towards data-driven approaches, leading to profound transformations in research practices. Scholars can utilize a wider and more diverse array of data, particularly as data-driven research methods facilitate deeper exploration of problems and refinement of theories (Tang et al., 2021a). Studying how research methods have evolved helps scholars look at problems in new ways and better understand the patterns of how a discipline develops. ...
... This finding may stem from the advent of the data intelligence era and the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, which have led to the continuous emergence of open access and online information resources. These resources provide scholars with richer data sources, thereby driving the breadth and depth of scientific research (Tang et al., 2021a). Furthermore, the abundance of data may also bring about new methods for problem-solving, drive technological transformations, and lead the shift towards data-driven models, which are more aligned with the current state of our information society (Tang et al., 2021b). ...
Since the 1990s, advancements in big data and information technology have increasingly driven data-centric research in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS). To assess the influence of this data-driven research paradigm on the LIS discipline, this study conducts a fine-grained analysis to uncover the evolutionary trends of research methods within the domain. Using academic papers from LIS published between 1990 and 2022, four key categories of data-driven method entities are automatically extracted: algorithms and models, data resources, software and tools, and metrics. Based on these entities, the study examines the evolution of LIS research methods from three dimensions: the characteristics of research method entities over time, their evolution within different research topics, and the evolutionary features of research method entities across various research methods. The findings highlight data resources as a pivotal driver of methodological evolution in LIS, revealing a cyclical pattern of "emergence-stability/practical application" in the development of research methods within the field.
... While SNSs have been examined with a focus on the above mentioned topics, their use for engagement in information activities in everyday life has not been emphasised, or explored in depth, in previous research (see Khoo, 2014;Lomborg, 2017;McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase, 2016b;Savolainen, 2023Savolainen, , 2017bTang et al., 2021;Vitak, 2017;Zhao et al., 2021). ...
... The design of this thesis project is a response to growing calls for theoretical and methodological perspectives that help to interpret and contextualise SNSs' use by focusing on examining users' information activities as situated within specific everyday contexts (see Elish and boyd, 2018;Karanasios et al., 2021;Kim et al., 2021;Leonardi, 2017;Lomborg, 2017;Tang et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2021). It is also a response to the growing calls for further explorations of and theorising about information practices formed and maintained at a collective level by online groups (e.g., see Hirvonen, 2022;Savolainen, 2023;Suh and Metzger, 2022;Vardell et al., 2022). ...
Social networking sites are integral in reshaping how we access and interact with information and others. This doctoral thesis aims to offer an in-depth understanding of engagement in an everyday life information practice within a private Facebook group. Based on interviews with Facebook group members, the thesis addresses questions such as: What affordances does the Facebook group offer for engagement in information activities? How do these affordances facilitate or constrain members' opportunities to engage? How is the group maintained as an environment for information activities and how does the group navigate the opportunities and challenges presented within it? The findings show that the Facebook group offers a distinctive online space providing both valuable opportunities and challenges for engagement in joint information activities. The study also highlights the strategic ways members individually, collaboratively, and as a group manage and navigate these opportunities and challenges. Overall, the thesis contributes theoretical and practical insights into the multifaceted engagement within a Facebook group for informational purposes in everyday life.
... While SNSs have been examined with a focus on the above mentioned topics, their use for engagement in information activities in everyday life has not been emphasised, or explored in depth, in previous research (see Khoo, 2014;Lomborg, 2017;McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase, 2016b;Savolainen, 2023Savolainen, , 2017bTang et al., 2021;Vitak, 2017;Zhao et al., 2021). ...
... The design of this thesis project is a response to growing calls for theoretical and methodological perspectives that help to interpret and contextualise SNSs' use by focusing on examining users' information activities as situated within specific everyday contexts (see Elish and boyd, 2018;Karanasios et al., 2021;Kim et al., 2021;Leonardi, 2017;Lomborg, 2017;Tang et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2021). It is also a response to the growing calls for further explorations of and theorising about information practices formed and maintained at a collective level by online groups (e.g., see Hirvonen, 2022;Savolainen, 2023;Suh and Metzger, 2022;Vardell et al., 2022). ...
... While SNSs have been examined with a focus on the above mentioned topics, their use for engagement in information activities in everyday life has not been emphasised, or explored in depth, in previous research (see Khoo, 2014;Lomborg, 2017;McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase, 2016b;Savolainen, 2023Savolainen, , 2017bTang et al., 2021;Vitak, 2017;Zhao et al., 2021). ...
... The design of this thesis project is a response to growing calls for theoretical and methodological perspectives that help to interpret and contextualise SNSs' use by focusing on examining users' information activities as situated within specific everyday contexts (see Elish and boyd, 2018;Karanasios et al., 2021;Kim et al., 2021;Leonardi, 2017;Lomborg, 2017;Tang et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2021). It is also a response to the growing calls for further explorations of and theorising about information practices formed and maintained at a collective level by online groups (e.g., see Hirvonen, 2022;Savolainen, 2023;Suh and Metzger, 2022;Vardell et al., 2022). ...
... While SNSs have been examined with a focus on the above mentioned topics, their use for engagement in information activities in everyday life has not been emphasised, or explored in depth, in previous research (see Khoo, 2014;Lomborg, 2017;McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase, 2016b;Savolainen, 2023Savolainen, , 2017bTang et al., 2021;Vitak, 2017;Zhao et al., 2021). ...
... The design of this thesis project is a response to growing calls for theoretical and methodological perspectives that help to interpret and contextualise SNSs' use by focusing on examining users' information activities as situated within specific everyday contexts (see Elish and boyd, 2018;Karanasios et al., 2021;Kim et al., 2021;Leonardi, 2017;Lomborg, 2017;Tang et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2021). It is also a response to the growing calls for further explorations of and theorising about information practices formed and maintained at a collective level by online groups (e.g., see Hirvonen, 2022;Savolainen, 2023;Suh and Metzger, 2022;Vardell et al., 2022). ...
... While SNSs have been examined with a focus on the above mentioned topics, their use for engagement in information activities in everyday life has not been emphasised, or explored in depth, in previous research (see Khoo, 2014;Lomborg, 2017;McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase, 2016b;Savolainen, 2023Savolainen, , 2017bTang et al., 2021;Vitak, 2017;Zhao et al., 2021). ...
... The design of this thesis project is a response to growing calls for theoretical and methodological perspectives that help to interpret and contextualise SNSs' use by focusing on examining users' information activities as situated within specific everyday contexts (see Elish and boyd, 2018;Karanasios et al., 2021;Kim et al., 2021;Leonardi, 2017;Lomborg, 2017;Tang et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2021). It is also a response to the growing calls for further explorations of and theorising about information practices formed and maintained at a collective level by online groups (e.g., see Hirvonen, 2022;Savolainen, 2023;Suh and Metzger, 2022;Vardell et al., 2022). ...
... While SNSs have been examined with a focus on the above mentioned topics, their use for engagement in information activities in everyday life has not been emphasised, or explored in depth, in previous research (see Khoo, 2014;Lomborg, 2017;McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase, 2016b;Savolainen, 2023Savolainen, , 2017bTang et al., 2021;Vitak, 2017;Zhao et al., 2021). ...
... The design of this thesis project is a response to growing calls for theoretical and methodological perspectives that help to interpret and contextualise SNSs' use by focusing on examining users' information activities as situated within specific everyday contexts (see Elish and boyd, 2018;Karanasios et al., 2021;Kim et al., 2021;Leonardi, 2017;Lomborg, 2017;Tang et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2021). It is also a response to the growing calls for further explorations of and theorising about information practices formed and maintained at a collective level by online groups (e.g., see Hirvonen, 2022;Savolainen, 2023;Suh and Metzger, 2022;Vardell et al., 2022). ...
... While SNSs have been examined with a focus on the above mentioned topics, their use for engagement in information activities in everyday life has not been emphasised, or explored in depth, in previous research (see Khoo, 2014;Lomborg, 2017;McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase, 2016b;Savolainen, 2023Savolainen, , 2017bTang et al., 2021;Vitak, 2017;Zhao et al., 2021). ...
... The design of this thesis project is a response to growing calls for theoretical and methodological perspectives that help to interpret and contextualise SNSs' use by focusing on examining users' information activities as situated within specific everyday contexts (see Elish and boyd, 2018;Karanasios et al., 2021;Kim et al., 2021;Leonardi, 2017;Lomborg, 2017;Tang et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2021). It is also a response to the growing calls for further explorations of and theorising about information practices formed and maintained at a collective level by online groups (e.g., see Hirvonen, 2022;Savolainen, 2023;Suh and Metzger, 2022;Vardell et al., 2022). ...
... Agarwal (2018) includes a comprehensive listing of information behavior research, especially as it relates to the context of human information behavior. Tang et al. (2021aTang et al. ( , 2021b) cover paradigm shifts in information behavior research. Bates (2022) summarizes the research focal points of information seeking metatheories. ...
... esearch trends for the present and future point to the role of information in mobile behavior, big data, disinformation, mixed realities, and DEIA, ethics of artificial intelligence, climate change and migration, among other topics, with several new and existing paradigms ranging from theoretical to practice-based to impactdriven, to socially and culturally oriented to data-driven, and to community engagement based (Tang et al., 2021a). This paper has several limitations. ...
Information behavior describes the many ways in which human beings interact with information – how people seek and utilize information, but also includes other activities such as avoiding/stopping, distorting, encountering by chance, organizing, storing, creating, sharing, diffusing, and deciding to stop using information. Prior studies have attempted to review the history of information seeking and information behavior research in the past 50-60 years. While there have been recent studies looking at different aspects of information behavior, there is a need to bring the key conclusions from these together in one place. This paper seeks to answer the question, “What is the trajectory of information behavior research in the 21st century? What are some of the future directions?” The unit of analysis is research articles published on information behavior between the years 2000 and 2023. These include papers published in Information Research, the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, and those presented in Information Seeking in Context conferences and the Annual Meetings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, and research on information behavior models and context. While not meant to be exhaustive, this paper should bring new and existing researchers up to speed on some of the recent developments in the field during the past two decades.
... When looking at the suggestions of Tang et al. (2021) about a paradigm shift in the field of information science, it is critical to consider the four areas they suggested: why, what, who, and how. The discussion in this article will address certain aspects of all four. ...
Scholarly communication has long been a central topic in the field of information science. However, philosophical, and even perhaps some legal reflections, including the moral and ethical considerations of the health of information ecosystems, are fairly recent developments. In fact, recent topics are propelled by various contextual factors including economic, disciplinary, societal norms, and cultures. This article explores literature discussing the plight of scholars in low-and middle-income countries that struggle to engage in scholarly communications in their fields. This topic has been explored for years, however, has often been addressed in disciplines outside of information science and knowledge management. This study posits that critical investigations lift this issue to one of justice and suggest a new critical lens that would rely on several existing lenses, including those developed to expand epistemic injustice, as well as exploring areas and perspectives that have not yet found their way into the mainstream literature. The analysis provides alternative approaches and discourse around the democratization of scholarly communications, all toward achieving a just and healthier global information ecosystem.
... Second, as identified in the genres of VCC, co-creating cultural heritage information practices cannot be achieved without close cooperation among institutions and communities. In this line, we recommend that researchers draw on the theory of community engagement (Du & Chu, 2022;Given & Kuys, 2022;Tang et al., 2021) and interorganizational coordination (Alexander, 1993;Jennings & Ewalt, 1998). For example, the community engagement model requires rich contextualized exploration and further focus on relevant contingent factors for different cultural heritage information practices. ...
Value co‐creation as a research topic has been a critical proposition of interest to a wide range of disciplines. In recent years, the field of cultural heritage has also developed a range of information practices to promote different forms of value co‐creation. While the body of literature has begun to accumulate, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of conceptual foundations and how value co‐creation is implemented in cultural heritage information practices. This paper conducted a hermeneutic literature review to understand and conceptualize the core aspects of value co‐creation in various cultural heritage information works. In particular, this paper provides a research mapping of the genres of co‐creation in cultural heritage information practices, the actors, and the roles played by the stakeholders. Further, this review provides an overview of the dominant value co‐creation models in the cultural heritage field. It distills the drivers of value co‐creation and the core value consequences that arise from a process perspective. Finally, this paper puts forward a thematic, theoretical, and methodological agenda for future work based on these findings. The review contributes to the literature by proposing an integrated conceptual framework that summarizes the core elements of value co‐creation in cultural heritage information practices. The framework also serves as a call for action, providing a general understanding of the conceptual foundation for future research.
... Given that the mission of information-related studies is to connect people, organizations, and society with the required information through the use of appropriate technologies (Chowdhury & Koya, 2017;Zhang & Benjamin, 2007), we argue that the information field should play a key role in promoting the theory and practice of ICT4D. It is worth noting that both the information field and the ICT4D are firmly located in human-centered imperatives (Tang et al., 2021;Zheng et al., 2018). ...
... 4).Der damit beschriebene, für die Informationswissenschaft bedeutende Dualismus der Weltsicht zwischen Realismus und Konstruktivismus scheint einer Art Oszillation unterworfen zu sein, von der zu hoffen ist, dass es zu einer Synthese kommt(Dreyfus & Taylor 2015) bzw. dass der Wechsel von Perspektiven stets weitere Forschungslücken aufdeckt(Tang, Mehra, Du & Zhao 2021a). ...
... These changes present challenges and opportunities for the field of information. While the field's traditional scope of study has broadened from a focus on individual people, specific technologies, and interactions with specific information objects (Marchionini, 2008) to a focus on more general information curation and interaction lifecycles, theories and methods for evaluating and designing information ecologies remain rare (Tang et al., 2021). Further, information research has yet to broadly incorporate approaches from other disciplines to conduct large-scale ecological evaluations or systematically engage with stakeholders in other sectors of society to design and implement broadly-used information platforms. ...
The scholarly knowledge ecosystem presents an outstanding exemplar of the challenges of understanding, improving, and governing information ecosystems at scale. This article draws upon significant reports on aspects of the ecosystem to characterize the most important research challenges and promising potential approaches. The focus of this review article is the fundamental scientific research challenges related to developing a better understanding of the scholarly knowledge ecosystem. Across a range of disciplines, we identify reports that are conceived broadly, published recently, and written collectively. We extract the critical research questions, summarize these using quantitative text analysis, and use this quantitative analysis to inform a qualitative synthesis. Three broad themes emerge from this analysis: the need for multi-sectoral cooperation and coordination, for mixed methods analysis at multiple levels, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Further, we draw attention to an emerging consensus that scientific research in this area should by a set of core human values.
... While information practitioners and researchers have long been engaged in development issues, these experiences have taken place only in privileged internalized networks and limited to targeted issues and groups ( Du et al., 2020 ;Tang et al., 2021 ). Part of those restrictions have been a result of the White-IST dominating paradigms that dictate traditional information practice in the Western world ( Albright, 2005 ;Mehra & Gray, 2020 ). ...
... To identify a paradigm, one should look to the concerns of a community; and to identify a paradigm shift, one should look to the way those concerns are changing. Tang et al. (2021), in an essay heralding a special issue of The Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), discuss the meaning of shifting paradigms. They begin by arguing that the dynamism of our present historical moment demands a reassessment of paradigms and conceptual models across the information field. ...
This article examines the historical expansion and convergence of the fields of information behavior and human–computer interaction, primarily in terms of the philosophy underlying each field. Information behavior grew out of research in library service provision in the early 1900s, and human–computer interaction grew out of computer science and human factors engineering in the 1960s. While these two fields have had different origins, purposes, and discourses, in recent decades, they have begun to converge. In this article, we map this convergence and consider implications for the future of the information field. We conceptualize their scholarly paradigms as expanding circles, and we show that the circles of information behavior and human–computer interaction are expanding in terms of ontology, epistemology, and axiology—and moreover, they are beginning to overlap substantially. While the two fields continue to be largely separate in terms of scholarly discourses, we suggest that much could be gained by explicitly acknowledging their shared components. Some suggestions for this are discussed, and these are connected to the ongoing iSchool Movement.
Recent events around the world, including the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza have highlighted the effective use of social media as a tool to voice concerns about social issues to create awareness. At the same time, social media has become a fertile ground for spreading misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories. Misinformation and conspiracy theories have existed since the existence of mankind. What is new today is the speed by which misinformation can be created, magnified and spread using social media. Efforts to regulate social media and control the widespread spread of misinformation are still lacking due to rapid advances in technology and concerns regarding free speech. One approach to minimizing the impact of misinformation is to focus on social noise as an important factor in magnifying and spreading misinformation. In this paper, we investigate methods of identifying and quantifying social noise using social entropy as a measure of uncertainty and topic modeling. Results from the study have shown a direct relationship between social noise and social entropy. The results have also shown that social noise and social entropy decrease with the use of URLs and rich content (sematic information). Further studies will include the use of machine learning and AI techniques to improve the definition of social news and social entropy.
Purpose
This scoping review article examined research on information behavior in communities over the past two decades (2000–2023). The review aims to uncover the characteristics and types of communities studied, the featured information behaviors, and the research methods employed.
Design/methodology/approach
The PRISMA-ScR guidelines were followed to conduct this review. Five databases were selected to search for relevant empirical research. A total of 57 studies met the inclusion criteria for review. Thematic synthesis was used to analyze the multidimensional findings of included studies.
Findings
A steady increase in the number of articles is evident in the past two decades. The review suggests that information behavior in community studies involved collaboration from other disciplines, such as public health and business management. More than half of the communities studied are virtual communities (56.1%), followed by communities of identity, professional communities and support communities, communities of interest, geographic communities, and academic communities. There are overlaps among these categories. Information sharing (63.2%) and information seeking (57.9%) were the most studied behavior of communities, followed by information use, information needs, and information judgment. Questionnaires (38.6%) and interviews (35.1%) were the most commonly used data collection techniques in studying information behavior in communities. It is noteworthy that eleven (19.3%) mentioned utilizing community-engaged approaches.
Originality/value
This is the first scoping review to explore the intersecting constructs of community research and information behavior studies. We call for further research to understand the contextual factors that shape the community’s information environments and to increase awareness of the partnership between communities and researchers.
This paper outlines a multidisciplinary framework ( Digital Rhetorical Ecosystem or DRE3 ) for scaling up qualitative analyses of image memes. First, we make a case for applying rhetorical theory to examine image memes as quasi‐arguments that promote claims on a variety of political and social issues. Next, we argue for integrating rhetorical analysis of image memes into an ecological framework to trace interaction and evolution of memetic claims as they coalesce into evidence ecosystems that inform public narratives. Finally, we apply a computational framework to address the particular problem of claim identification in memes at large scales. Our integrated framework answers the recent call in information studies to highlight the social, political, and cultural attributes of information phenomena, and bridges the divide between small‐scale qualitative analyses and large‐scale computational analyses of image memes. We present this theoretical framework to guide the development of research questions, processes, and computational architecture to study the widespread and powerful influence of image memes in shaping consequential public beliefs and sentiments.
Changes in our informational environment have brought new challenges and opportunities to address systemic issues of information inequity. Thus, when addressing systemic issues of information inequity, it is important to address it not only from the perspective of information access, as it is often considered in information science, but also from the perspective of how information objects are constructed and produced. This essay brings concerns within information science into discussion with journalism studies and critical technology studies to consider: (1) how the production of information, through the case of mainstream journalism, can create information inequity within information representations, and (2) how the dissemination and retrieval of this journalistic information through algorithmically‐mediated online information systems, specifically social media and search platforms, can replicate and reinforce information inequity within a larger information ecosystem. Thus, this essay uses an interdisciplinary lens to suggest new approaches to holistically address information inequity, putting forth a conceptual framework with actionable steps to create a more equitable information ecosystem.
Evaluating information quality online is increasingly important for healthy decision‐making. People assess information quality using visual interfaces (e.g., computers, smartphones) with visual cues like aesthetics. Yet, voice interfaces lack critical visual cues for evaluating information because there is often no visual display. Without ways to assess voice‐based information quality, people may overly trust or misinterpret information which can be challenging in high‐risk or sensitive contexts. This paper investigates voice information uncertainty in one high‐risk context—health information seeking. We recruited 30 adults (ages 18–84) in the United States to participate in scenario‐based interviews about health topics. Our findings provide evidence of information uncertainty expectations with voice assistants, voice search preferences, and the audio cues they use to assess information quality. We contribute a nuanced discussion of how to inform more critical information ecosystems with voice technologies and propose ways to design audio cues to help people more quickly assess content quality.
The research reported in this paper is part of a larger project focusing on the iSchools’ identity and interactions in a globalized world. This paper presents the research management strategy for conducting a global research project among international research communities, and for investigating the current research focus of iSchools members based on the insights of global iSchools’ leaders. It found that information management was the dominant research area and that digital humanities, data science, and “informatics+ scenarios” are the key growth points. The most significant contribution of iSchools to society lies in social services. The research focuses on and benefits worldwide iSchools by outlining development strategies and strengthening the connection between research and society to increase social awareness, influence and reputation.
An issue in the 21st century is how public libraries can be strategic and impactful to achieve greater equity. Based on a qualitative meta-analysis of chapters from the authors’ book A Librarian’s Guide to Engaging Families published in 2021, this article presents a framework of social justice to strengthen library services to engage underserved families in student learning. Three themes include: 1) Public libraries welcome underserved families using targeted universalism and active inclusion strategies. 2) They take bold leadership to rectify historically imbalanced inequities by removing barriers and reallocating resources. 3) They respect family roles/agency and uphold community economic development.
In this paper, I critically examine ethical issues introduced by predictive analytics. I argue firms can have a market incentive to construct deceptively inflated true‐positive outcomes: individuals are over‐categorized as requiring a penalizing treatment and the treatment leads to mistakenly thinking this label was correct. I show that differences in power between firms developing and using predictive analytics compared to subjects can lead to firms reaping the benefits of predatory predictions while subjects can bear the brunt of the costs. While profitable, the use of predatory predictions can deceive stakeholders by inflating the measurement of accuracy, diminish the individuality of subjects, and exert arbitrary power. I then argue that firms have a responsibility to distinguish between the treatment effect and predictive power of the predictive analytics program, better internalize the costs of categorizing someone as needing a penalizing treatment, and justify the predictions of subjects and general use of predictive analytics. Subjecting individuals to predatory predictions only for a firms' efficiency and benefit is unethical and an arbitrary exertion of power. Firms developing and deploying a predictive analytics program can benefit from constructing predatory predictions while the cost is borne by the less powerful subjects of the program.
This chapter traces the actualities and possibilities of representing social justice and social equity concerns in LIS via extending Ranganathan's five laws of librarianship within today's contemporary neoliberal and geopolitical realities. Blinders in librarianship are identified in its resistance to intentional, systematic, action-oriented, community-engaged, and impact-driven strategies of social justice and real change owing to its White-IST (white + elitist) roots. These are speculated in relation to the profession's undervaluing of Ranganathan's contributions because of his South Asian (i.e., East Indian) origins as a result of the pedestalizing of its Anglo/Eurocentric components within the legacies of a colonized and imperialistic world order. A manifesto of social justice laws of librarianship is proposed to address past and recent lapses in LIS.
There is a dearth of information behavior research employing a community-engaged approach. This research takes the concept of community engagement as its central focus, reviewing its proximal use in information behavior research and arguing its potential as an integrative process that can restore and reposition the community-researcher relationship in the information behavior field. The “why – what – how” of undertaking community-engaged information behavior (CEIB) research were elaborated and a methodological framework was developed based on these discussions. The CEIB methodology introduced advances a new approach to study human-information interactions, consisting of principles and core components and characteristics of CEIB research that moves beyond the one-sided, researcher-led information behavior study.
Information researchers can further social justice and social equity to meet the needs of minority and underserved populations experiencing intersecting modes of cultural marginalization. Scholars of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) can find overlooked intersections with social justice in “community networking” research since the 1980s to overcome the digital divides between the haves and have‐nots. To frame social justice initiatives within a consolidated vision of ICT4D in the field of information, this article proposes an impact‐driven framework, expounded through five interrelated elements: why (motivations), with who (engaged constituencies), how (at external and internal levels to change traditional practices), and toward what (goal). It is explicated through select historical instances of “community networking” and digital divides, ICT4D, and social justice intersections. Significance of the elements is also demonstrated via this author's select information‐related social justice research conducted in the United States. The urgency for critical and reflective conversations is important owing to historically abstracted human information behavior theory development within information research outdated in multiple contextualized needs of contemporary times. Historically situating impact‐driven social justice research is important to further the relevance, existence, and growth of the information field as it strengthens its ties with ICT4D.
The objective of this paper is to explore the opportunities for human information behaviour research to inform and influence the field of machine learning and the resulting machine information behaviour. Using the development of foundation models in machine learning as an example, the paper illustrates how human information behaviour research can bring to machine learning a more nuanced view of information and informing, a better understanding of information need and how that affects the communication among people and systems, guidance on the nature of context and how to operationalize that in models and systems, and insights into bias, misinformation, and marginalization. Despite their clear differences, the fields of information behaviour and machine learning share many common objectives, paradigms, and key research questions. The example of foundation models illustrates that human information behaviour research has much to offer in addressing some of the challenges emerging in the nascent area of machine information behaviour.
Purpose
This literature review aims to identify conscious, intentional, repetitive and transferrable information-related decisions and activities (i.e. information practices) for individuals to alleviate their information vulnerability. Information vulnerability refers to the lack of access to accurate, affordable, complete, relevant and timely information or the inability to use such information, which can place individuals, communities or society at disadvantage or hurt them.
Design/methodology/approach
Conceptual literature review.
Findings
This review presents seven conscious, intentional, repetitive and transferrable information practices to alleviate information vulnerability.
Practical implications
Due to the transferability potential of the seven information practices, diverse populations in varied contexts could refer to, adapt and benefit from appropriate combinations of information practices and their manifestations. The framework can be used by individuals for alleviating information vulnerability. Thus, this paper responds to the call for conducting action-driven research in information science for addressing real-world problems. Information professionals can help individuals select and implement appropriate combinations of seven information practices for alleviating information vulnerability.
Originality/value
We propose (1) a parsimonious, episodic framework for alleviating information vulnerability, which depicts the inter-relationship among the seven information practices and (2) a three-dimensional plot with information access, use and value as three axes to map the manifestation and outcome of alleviating information vulnerability.
This article builds on the argument that feminist technoscience will advance information practice scholarship beyond its current limitations. These limitations reflect neoliberalism in the field of information science and include a reliance on extractive logics in theories and models, monological individualism, binaries constructed between people and technologies, and techno‐solutionism. Here, we address the question: what does it look like to apply technofeminism to the study of information practice at methodological and methods levels? We first outline our metatheoretical conception of feminist technoscience, which embraces intersectionality and assemblage theory in order to move past white and colonialist logics embedded in cyborg theory. We next offer design justice as a methodological framework and movement that provides a necessary overhaul of the neoliberal ways that information science approaches scholarship, particularly in terms of participatory research. We suggest that speculative futurities provide a promising method for advancing technofeminism in information practice research because they explicitly reject neoliberalism and its techno‐solutionist bent. Overall, a feminist technoscience of information practice offers directions for our field that are rooted in liberatory epistemologies. We emphasize that in order to achieve liberation, a major overhaul in how our discipline approaches arrangements of information, people, and technologies is sorely needed.
Relevance is a notion whose meaning and purpose have been widely discussed in information retrieval research. The ultimate aim of relevance—what Tefko Saracevic has called the “you know” principle—is to ensure that users have the information necessary to meet their goals. What is often missing from this discussion is a critical assessment of who gets to decide what information is relevant, under what circumstances, and for what purposes—especially in relation to marginalized populations. The limited discussion of social justice in information relevance research is a gap this interactive panel discussion seeks to address. Five emerging, junior, and senior researchers will each identify and outline social justice themes of information relevance (e.g., intersectionality, Black feminist lens, geography, immigration status, and holistic critical relevance) that have been evident in their own scholarship. Audience members will have an opportunity to expand on one of the five themes in concert with a panelist before participants consider together future directions for relevance of information in a social justice context. While each participant may have different definitions of social justice, a broad interpretation of the term will frame the conversation by indicating how information relevance can move society towards a fairer and more equitable future.
Virtue epistemology offers a yet‐untapped path for ethical development in information science. This paper presents two empirical studies on intellectual humility (IH), a cornerstone intellectual virtue. Centrally, IH is a matter of being open to the possibility that one may be misinformed or uninformed; it involves accurately valuing one's beliefs according to the evidence. The studies presented in this paper explore the relationship between IH and people's information seeking and use. First, a correlational questionnaire study was conducted with 201 participants considering a recent, real‐life task; second, a concurrent thinkaloud study was conducted with 8 participants completing 3 online search tasks. These studies give further color to prior assertions that people with higher IH engage in more information seeking. The results show, for instance, that those with higher IH may actually favor more easily accessible information sources and that some dimensions of IH, such as modesty and engagement, may be most important to information seeking. These findings offer a nuanced understanding of the relationship between IH and information behavior and practices. They suggest avenues for further research, and they may be applied in educational contexts and sociotechnical design.
In this opinion paper, we argue that global health crises are also information crises. Using as an example the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) epidemic, we (a) examine challenges associated with what we term “global information crises”; (b) recommend changes needed for the field of information science to play a leading role in such crises; and (c) propose actionable items for short‐ and long‐term research, education, and practice in information science.
This article documents scenarios or narratives of health engagement experiences in rural libraries based on qualitative analysis of feedback collected from 15 rural librarians in the Southern and Central Appalachian (SCA) region during semi-structured interviews conducted in 2017-2018. The article focuses on respondents’ perspectives of the “aboutness” of their health-related engagement, collaborating partners, encountered challenges, and resulting outcomes. Scenarios were documented in broader interviews that focused on specific health activities and community engagement in 11 domains, including agriculture, diversity, economy, education, environment, government, health, law, manufacturing, social welfare, and other. The research forms part of a planning grant entitled “Assessment of Rural Library Professionals’ Role in Community Engagement in the Southern and Central Appalachian Region: Mobilization from Change Agents to Community Anchors (CA2CA@SCA-RL)” awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the University of Tennessee, sub-contracted to the University of Alabama this year (July 2017 – June 2019). Scenarios provide a taxonomic classification of health-related programs relevant to the region and a framework of practice related to their implementation. As a health justice tool, they also challenge the hegemonic imagination of mainstream American society, news media, and popular culture that has only presented the SCA rural belt in deficit light. The article becomes a counter-point to these past unfair and marginalizing representations in its constructive asset recognition of the SCA rural librarians’ positive examples of health-related experiences. It spotlights the “invisible” of SCA librarians’ individual/community empowerment as change agents making an impact on the lives of their rural residents.
The 2016 presidential election in the United States was unprecedented in the extent of bitter divisiveness between the candidates’ campaigns, the complex factors attributed to the unexpected results, and the difficult years in which the nation will reel fromthe short-and long-term effects. In its aftermath, an aggravated, broken nation extends rural libraries an extraordinary charge to help mend the splinters and move forward in their local environments. They have an opening to take ownership of a compelling responsibility as agents of democracy toward political, economic, and civic recovery. This think piece analyzes the implications of the 2016 presidential election for rural libraries primarily as information service providers that can aggressively further political information literacy, fluency, and advocacy and economic development as tools to nurture a more refined, responsive, respectful, and relevant form of democracy in the twenty-first century than what we have seen recently.
Emerging as a discipline in the first half of the twentieth century, the information sciences study how people, groups, organizations, and governments create, share, disseminate, manage, search, access, evaluate, and protect information, as well as how different technologies and policies can facilitate and constrain these activities. Given the broad span of the information sciences, it is perhaps not surprising that there is no consensus regarding its underlying theory—the purposes of it, the types of it, or how one goes about developing new theories to talk about new research questions.
Diane H. Sonnenwald and the contributors to this volume seek to shed light on these issues by sharing reflections on the theory-development process. These reflections are not meant to revolve around data collection and analysis; rather, they focus on the struggles, challenges, successes, and excitement of developing theories. The particular theories that the contributors explore in their essays range widely, from theories of literacy and reading to theories of design and digital search. Several chapters engage with theories of the behavior of individuals and groups; some deal with processes of evaluation; others reflect on questions of design; and the rest treat cultural and scientific heritage. The ultimate goal, Sonnenwald writes in her introduction, is to “encourage, inspire, and assist individuals striving to develop and/or teach theory development.”
Purpose
Describes the basic premises of three metatheories that represent important or emerging perspectives on information seeking, retrieval and knowledge formation in information science: constructivism, collectivism, and constructionism.
Design/methodology/approach
Presents a literature‐based conceptual analysis. Pinpoints the differences between the positions in their conceptions of language and the nature and origin of knowledge.
Findings
Each of the three metatheories addresses and solves specific types of research questions and design problems. The metatheories thus complement one another. Each of the three metatheories encourages and constitutes a distinctive type of research and learning.
Originality/value
Outlines each metatheory's specific fields of application.
Over the last 7 years, the AIMTech Research Group in the University of Leeds has used cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to inform a range of research activities in the fields of information behavior and information systems. In this article, we identify certain openings and theoretical challenges in the field of information behavior, which sparked our initial interest in CHAT: context, technology, and the link between practice and policy. We demonstrate the relevance of CHAT in studying information behavior and addressing the identified openings and argue that by providing a framework and hierarchy of activity-action-operation and semantic tools, CHAT is able to overcome many of the uncertainties concerning information behavior research. In particular, CHAT provides researchers a theoretical lens to account for context and activity mediation and, by doing so, can increase the significance of information behavior research to practice. In undertaking this endeavour, we have relied on literature from the fields of information science and others where CHAT is employed. We provide a detailed description of how CHAT may be applied to information behavior and account for the concepts we see as relevant to its study.
This article identifies scenarios of technology use in rural libraries to promote community engagement in overcoming marginalization and bridging rural digital divides in the Southern and Central Appalachian (SCA) region. The research is based on a qualitative content analysis of feedback collected from 15 rural librarians in semi-structured interviews and three respondents each in five focus groups during 2017–2018. Select scenarios defined as typical experience-related representative narratives of technology use of rural librarians serve as a tool to investigate their community-engaged initiatives. Respondents’ perspectives, behaviors, and experiences of technology use in community engagement selectively highlight their activities, collaborating partners, encountered challenges specific to the region, and the resulting outcomes of their initiatives. The article extends past theory-practice discourse in information science research to integrate impact that was documented in respondents’ community-engaged technology use behaviors in the SCA rural environments. It explores a positive model of technology use and community engagement in the SCA rural libraries as a strategy to overcome marginalization and bridge rural digital divides historically experienced in the region.
In this position paper, we synthesize various knowledge gaps in information privacy scholarship and propose a research agenda that promotes greater cross-disciplinary collaboration within the iSchool community and beyond. We start by critically examining Westin's conceptualization of information privacy and argue for a contextual approach that holds promise for overcoming some of Westin's weaknesses. We then highlight three contextual considerations for studying privacy-digital networks, marginalized populations, and the global context-and close by discussing how these considerations advance privacy theorization and technology design.
In this paper, we reflected on the ethical information research based on our two studies conducted with an Indigenous community in South Australia. The first study was about understanding how Indigenous people interact with information and communication technologies (ICTs) on their traditional land and how they perceive the role of ICTs in the community development. The second study focused on Indigenous knowledge and experiences sharing in the traditional society. Ethical investigations on Indigenous people's information and knowledge practices will contribute to information research with marginalized groups.
Digital tools offer new affordances and methodologies to humanities scholars' research. This study used a constructivist grounded theory approach to examine humanities scholars' research practices, including their use of a wide range of resources and digital technologies. Using in-depth study, several themes emerged from the research relating to the role of technology in shaping humanities scholars' research practices. The themes include: (a) humanities scholars' research approaches and technology tools; (b) the humanities scholar as tool developer; (c) the role of data preparation as a meta-level research practice; (d) data visualization versus numeric outputs—one size does not fit all; (e) the importance of flexibility and agency; (f) technology tools in support of the researcher as writer; and (g) working alone/working together—technology tools and collaborative practice. The heterogeneous nature of humanities scholars' research practices are explored and the resulting implications for digital tool design. Two new research practices—tool development and data preparation—are proposed. The diverse digital technologies humanities scholars use support the traditional ways of working within their discipline, as well as creating potential for new scholarly practices.
Recent research in information studies suggests that the tradition of seeing the discipline as weak is still alive and kicking. This is a problem because the discourse of the weak discipline creates conceptual confusion in relation to interdisciplinarity. Considering the growth of the iSchools and what is assumed to be a major institutional redrawing of boundaries, there is a pressing need to conceptualize interdisciplinary practices and boundary work. This paper explores the “weak” discipline through a discourse analytical lens and identifies a myth. Perceiving the discipline as weak is part of a myth, fueled by the ideal of a unitary discipline; the ideal discipline has strong boundaries, and as long as the discourse continues to focus on a need for boundaries, the only available discourse is one that articulates the discipline as weak. Thus, the myth is a vicious circle that can be broken if weakness is no longer ascribed to the discipline by tradition. The paper offers an explanation of the workings of the myth so that its particular way of interpreting the world does not mislead us when theorizing interdisciplinarity. This is a conceptual paper, and the examples serve as an empirical backdrop to the conceptual argument.
The omnipresence and escalating efficiency of digital, networked information systems alongside the resulting deluge of digital corpora, apps, software, and data has coincided with increased concerns in the humanities with new topics and methods of inquiry. In particular, digital humanities (DH), the subfield that has emerged as the site of most of this work, has received growing attention in higher education in recent years. This study seeks to facilitate a better understanding of digital humanities by studying the motivations and practices of digital humanists as information workers in the humanities. To this end, we observe information work through interviews with DH scholars about their work practices and through a survey of DH programs such as graduate degrees, certificates, minors, and training institutes. In this study we focus on how the goals behind methodology (a link between theories and method) surface in everyday DH work practices and in DH curricula in order to investigate if the critiques that have appeared in relation to DH information work are well founded and to suggest alternative narratives about information work in DH that will help advance the impact of the field in the humanities and beyond.
Training culturally competent and socially responsible library and information science (LIS) professionals requires a blended approach that extends across curricula, professional practice, and research. Social justice can support these goals by serving as a topic of inquiry in LIS curricula as well as by providing a scholarly framework for understanding how power and privilege shape LIS institutions and professional practice. This article applies social justice as a topic and tool for transforming LIS curricula and culture by exploring the implementation of social justice– themed courses and an extracurricular reading group in one LIS department. Exploring curricular and extracurricular cases in a shared institutional setting contextualizes key challenges and conversations that can inform similar initiatives in other institutions. Transforming LIS culture to prioritize social justice values, epistemologies, and frameworks requires multivalent strategies, community buy-in, and shared responsibility in terms of the labor of leading and sustaining engagement with social justice.
Introduction. Along with leading to growth in the numbers of people doing information work, the increasing role of information in our contemporary society has led to an explosion of new information professions as well. The labels for these fields can be confusing and overlapping, and what does and does not constitute an information profession has become unclear. Method. We have available a body of theory and analysis that can form the basis of a review of this new professional landscape, and enable us to clarify and rationalize the array of emerging information professions. Analysis. Work by the author and others on the philosophical nature, and core elements, of the information professions is drawn upon and applied to the current professional scene. Results. The nature of information itself and of information-related activities are defined and closely analysed to produce models of the disciplines and the work elements within the disciplines of information. Conclusions. The analysis makes possible the incorporation of popular new information disciplines into an overarching framework that also includes pre-existing fields. The analysis provides a perspective that clarifies the relationships among the information disciplines as well as their relationship to other professional activities in society.
A fresh research approach that bridges the study of human information interaction and the design of information systems.
Human information interaction (HII) is an emerging area of study that investigates how people interact with information; its subfield human information behavior (HIB) is a flourishing, active discipline. Yet despite their obvious relevance to the design of information systems, these research areas have had almost no impact on systems design. One issue may be the contextual complexity of human interaction with information; another may be the difficulty in translating real-life and unstructured HII complexity into formal, linear structures necessary for systems design. In this book, Raya Fidel proposes a research approach that bridges the study of human information interaction and the design of information systems: cognitive work analysis (CWA). Developed by Jens Rasmussen and his colleagues, CWA embraces complexity and provides a conceptual framework and analytical tools that can harness it to create design requirements. CWA offers an ecological approach to design, analyzing the forces in the environment that shape human interaction with information.
Fidel reviews research in HIB, focusing on its contribution to systems design, and then presents the CWA framework. She shows that CWA, with its ecological approach, can be used to overcome design challenges and lead to the development of effective systems. Researchers and designers who use CWA can increase the diversity of their analytical tools, providing them with an alternative approach when they plan research and design projects. The CWA framework enables a collaboration between design and HII that can create information systems tailored to fit human lives.
Information seeking in the workplace can vary substantially from one search to the next due to changes in the context of the search. Modeling these dynamic contextual effects is an important challenge facing the research community because it has the potential to lead to more responsive search systems. With this motivation, a study of software engineers was conducted to understand the role that contextual factors play in shaping their information-seeking behavior. Research was conducted in the field in a large technology company and comprised six unstructured interviews, a focus group, and 13 in-depth, semistructured interviews. Qualitative analysis revealed a set of contextual factors and related information behaviors. Results are formalized in the contextual model of source selection, the main contributions of which are the identification of two types of conditioning variables (requirements and constraints) that mediate between the contextual factors and source-selection decisions, and the articulation of dominant source-selection patterns. The study has implications for the design of context-sensitive search systems in this domain and may inform contextual approaches to information seeking in other professional domains.
The experiences of academic women of colour in geography have not been discussed in detail in our discipline. While we have witnessed an gradual increase in the literature about women of colour within feminist geography, transnationalism, and diaspora studies, among other subfields, we have yet to thoroughly explore how geography's historical engagement with colonialism and imperialism work to ensure the continued domination of whiteness among faculty and students within geography. This special issue brings to light the experiences of some women of colour who research, teach and work within the discipline of geography, suggesting some future avenues for more emancipatory geographies within the academy.Cuestionando la Torre de Marfil: Proponiendo geografías antirracistas en la academiaLas experiencias de mujeres académicas del color en la geografía no se han discutido con todo detalle en nuestra disciplina. Mientras hemos presenciado un aumento en la literatura acerca de mujeres del color dentro de la geografía feminista, transnationalism, y los estudios de diáspora, entre otro subfields, nosotros tenemos mas examinar cómo compromiso histórico de geografía con el trabajo del colonialismo y el imperialismo para asegurar la dominación continuada de la blancura entre la facultad y estudiantes dentro de la geografía. Este asunto especial revela las experiencias de algunas mujeres del color que investiga, enseña y trabaja dentro de la disciplina de la geografía, sugiriendo algunas avenidas futuras para geografías más emancipadoras dentro de la academia.
In the spirit of Jurgen Habermas's project of linking sociological observation with legal philosophy, this Article analyses the Internet standards processes - complex nongovernmental international rulemaking discourses. It suggests that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards discourse - a small, slightly formalized, set of cooperative procedures that make the other Internet discourses possible - is a concrete example of a rulemaking process that meets Habermas's notoriously demanding procedural conditions for a discourse capable of legitimating its outcomes. As evidence, the Article offers a social and institutional history of the IETF's Internet Standards process; and argues that participants in the IETF are engaged in a very high level of discourse, and are self-consciously documenting it. Identifying a practical discourse that meets Habermas's conditions removes the potentially crushing empirical objection that Habermas's theory of justice is too demanding for real-life application, although it does not prove its truth. Habermas's work provides a standpoint from which social institutions can be critiqued in the hopes of making them more legitimate and more just. Armed with evidence that Habermasian discourse is achievable, the Article surveys other Internet-based developments that may approach his ideal or, as in the case of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), that already claim a special form of legitimacy. This Article finds most of these other procedures wanting and argues that the existence of even one example of a functioning Habermasian discourse should inspire attempts to make other decisions in as legitimate and participatory a manner as possible. Habermas seeks not only to define when a rulemaking system can claim legitimacy for its outputs, but also to describe tendencies that affect a modern society's ability to realize his theory. Speaking more as a sociologist than a philosopher, Habermas has also suggested that the forces needed to push public decisionmaking in the directions advocated by his philosophy are likely to come from a re-energized, activist, engaged citizenry working together to create new small-scale communicative institutions that over time either merge into larger ones or at least join forces. Like Habermas's idea of a practical discourse, this may sound fine in theory but is difficult to put into practice. New technology may, however, increase the likelihood of achieving the Habermasian scenario of diverse citizens' groups engaging in practical discourses of their own. Technology may not compel outcomes, but it certainly can make difficult things easier. A number of new tools such as slash servers, blogs, wiki webs, community filtering tools and e-government initiatives show a potential for enabling not just discourse, but good discourse. While it is far too soon to claim that the widespread diffusion and use of these tools, or their successors, might actualize the best practical discourse in an ever-wider section of society, it is not too soon to hope - and perhaps to install some software.
The concept of situational relevance is introduced, based on W. S. Cooper's definition of logical relevance, on the notion of evidential relevance drawn from inductive logic, on the notions of a personal stock of knowledge and a set of personal concerns, the latter explained in terms of preferences over ranges of alternatives. Situationally relevant items of information are those that answer, or logically help to answer, questions of concern. Significant situationally relevant information is explained in terms of changes of view in relation to questions of concern. It is claimed that situational relevance is an explication of the ordinary notion of practical relevance, and that it is the appropriate relevance concept to use in evaluation of systems supplying practically relevant information.
This paper presents different facets or aspects of Library and Information Science (LIS) from a theoretical and philosophical perspective. It begins with the presentation of different attitudes towards LIS and the divergence between LIS as a knowledge producing and knowledge utilizing area. It goes on to discuss the different labels for the discipline, its institutional affiliations and some technology driven paradigms. Fields of LIS practices, examples of concrete research problems and the fundamental concepts are introduced as are subareas, theories, related disciplines, and approaches (“paradigms”/metatheories). Also a short presentation of research methods and basic philosophical assumptions is included.
The information field continues to evolve rapidly as digital technology changes the very nature of information and how people interact with each other and with information. This article argues that the past 30 years have seen a shift from distinct emphases on information, individual people, and specific technologies to emphases on the interactions among more diverse forms and amounts of information, people, and technologies. Human–information interaction shifts the foci of all aspects of information work; blurs boundaries between information objects, technology, and people; and creates new forms of information. This article discusses changes in each of these components of information and trends and challenges surrounding the study of their interactions are presented.
In 1975 Tefko Saracevic declared “the subject knowledge view” to be the most fundamental perspective of relevance. This paper examines the assumptions in different views of relevance, including “the system's view” and “the user's view” and offers a reinterpretation of these views. The paper finds that what was regarded as the most fundamental view by Saracevic in 1975 has not since been considered (with very few exceptions). Other views, which are based on less fruitful assumptions, have dominated the discourse on relevance in information retrieval and information science. Many authors have reexamined the concept of relevance in information science, but have neglected the subject knowledge view, hence basic theoretical assumptions seem not to have been properly addressed. It is as urgent now as it was in 1975 seriously to consider “the subject knowledge view” of relevance (which may also be termed “the epistemological view”). The concept of relevance, like other basic concepts, is influenced by overall approaches to information science, such as the cognitive view and the domain-analytic view. There is today a trend toward a social paradigm for information science. This paper offers an understanding of relevance from such a social point of view.
This study addresses ways in which inmates at the only maximum-security prison for women in Neuse City (in the northeastern United States) redefine their social world in order to survive incarceration. An aim of the project is to engage in theory building in order to exam- ine the experiences of a world that is "lived in the round." A life in the round is a public form of life. It is a lifestyle with an enormous degree of imprecision. Yet, it is this inexactitude that provides an acceptable level of cer- tainty. This way of life sets standards by which one constructs everyday meaning from reality. It is a "taken- for-granted," "business-as-usual" style of being. Relying on ethnographic research and interviews with 80 women at the prison, the findings revealed that a life in the round was sustaining a "normative" existence.
We elaborate on Pettigrew's (1998, 1999) theory of information grounds while using an outcome evaluation approach enriched by its focus on context to explore the use of need-based services by immigrants in New York City. Immigrants have substantial information and practical needs for help with adjusting to life in a new country. Because of differences in language, culture, and other factors such as access, new immigrants are a difficult population to study. As a result, little research has examined their predilections from an information behavior perspective. We report findings from a qualitative study of how literacy and coping skills programs are used by and benefit the immigrant customers of the Queens Borough Public Library (QBPL). From our interviews and observation of 45 program users, staff, and other stakeholders, we derived a grand context (in Pettigrew's terms) woven from three subcontexts: the immigrants of Queens, New York; the QBPL, its service model, and activities for immigrants; and professional contributions of QBPL staff. Our findings are discussed along two dimensions: (a) building blocks toward information literacy, and (b) personal gains achieved by immigrants for themselves and their families. We conclude that successful introduction to the QBPL - as per its mission, programming, and staff- can lead immigrants to a synergistic information ground that can help in meeting broad psychological, social, and practical needs.
This article presents a socio-cognitive perspective in relation to information science (IS) and information retrieval (IR). The differences between traditional cognitive views and the socio-cognitive or domain-analytic view are outlined. It is claimed that, given elementary skills in computer-based retrieval, people are basically interacting with representations of subject literatures in IR. The kind of knowledge needed to interact with representations of subject literatures is discussed. It is shown how different approaches or paradigms in the represented literature imply different information needs and relevance criteria (which users typically cannot express very well, which is why IS cannot primarily rely on user studies). These principles are exemplified by comparing behaviorism, cognitivism, psychoanalysis, and neuroscience as approaches in psychology. The relevance criteria implicit in each position are outlined, and empirical data are provided to prove the theoretical claims. It is further shown that the most general level of relevance criteria is implied by epistemological theories. The article concludes that the fundamental problems of IS and IR are based in epistemology, which therefore becomes the most important allied field for IS.
This paper explores the history of `the social' in information science. It traces the influence of social scientific thinking on the development of the field's intellectual base. The continuing appropriation of both theoretical and methodological insights from domains such as social studies of science, science and technology studies, and socio-technical systems is discussed.
The common rhetoric about technology falls into two extreme categories: uncritical acceptance or blanket rejection. These two positions leave us with poor choices for action. They encourage us to accept as inevitable whatever technological changes come along. Claiming a middle ground, these chapters from the book Information Ecologies (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999) call for responsible, informed engagement with technology in local settings, or information ecologies. An information ecology is a system of people, practices, technologies, and values in a local environment. Like their biological counterparts, information ecologies are diverse, continually evolving, and complex.
The authors describe a large-scale, longitudinal citation analysis of intellectual trading between information studies and cognate disciplines. The results of their investigation reveal the extent to which information studies draws on and, in turn, contributes to the ideational substrates of other academic domains. Their data show that the field has become a more successful exporter of ideas as well as less introverted than was previously the case. In the last decade, information studies has begun to contribute significantly to the literatures of such disciplines as computer science and engineering on the one hand and business and management on the other, while also drawing more heavily on those same literatures.
this article is to elucidate key elements of the below-the-water-line portion of the information science paradigm. Particular emphasis is given to information science's role as a meta-science---conducting research and developing theory around the documentary products of other disciplines and activities. The mental activities of the professional practice of the field are seen to center around representation and organization of information rather than knowing information. It is argued that such representation engages fundamentally different talents and skills from those required in other professions and intellectual disciplines. Methodological approaches and values of information science are also considered. Introduction Recently, digital information and new forms of information technology have become the focus of tremendous amounts of attention and energy in our society. Money is pouring into the development of all manner of technologies
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