[Siguse-l] Message #5 - The Literature: An Information Behavior Textbook

[Jenna Hartel]

Dear SIGUSErs,

Our contemplation of "The Literature" of information behavior continues...

Nearly a decade ago, the first information behavior textbook appeared, 
/Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, 
Needs, and Behavior /(Case, 2002), and is now in its second edition 
(Case, 2006). It is an important landmark and sign of maturity for a 
research area to generate a textbook, which is a reference genre 
designed to systematically introduce a topic to students or other 
non-expert readers.

The author of /Looking for Information/ (for short) is Donald O. Case 
<http://www.uky.edu/CommInfoStudies/SLIS/faculty/case.htm>, professor in 
the College of Communications and Information Studies at the University 
of Kentucky. He holds an MLS from Syracuse University and a doctorate in 
communications research from Stanford University. Dr. Case has been 
involved in the information behavior research specialty since the 
mid-1980s. I personally have valued his pioneering research into the 
information behavior of social scientists and humanists (1986), as well 
as historians (1991a, 1991b). While a specialist in information 
behavior, Dr. Case has broad interests across information studies and 
has served as a president of ASIS&T.

In the preface of the 2^nd edition, Dr. Case explains that he decided to 
write the textbook in the early 2000s when interest in the information 
behavior research area was growing. Both editions of the book focus on 
the last two decades of research and take a person-oriented (versus 
systems-oriented) perspective.The current edition has 423 pages, 
organized as 5 sections and 13 chapters; at Amazon.com you can see the 
table of contents 
<http://www.amazon.com/Looking-Information-Second-Research-Behavior/dp/0123694302#reader_0123694302>. 


/Looking for Information/ has been very well-received by the information 
behavior community. In 2003 the first edition won the ASIS&T "Best 
Information Science Book of 2002." A review of the first edition in 
/JASIS&T /surveys the content in detail, remarks upon Dr. Cases' attempt 
at a neutral metatheoretical stance, scrutinizes his application of 
Sense-Making, and concludes overall that the text is "ambitious," 
"welcome," and "useful." (Savolainen, 2003 
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.10246/abstract;jsessionid=E299928A21F2E14741453DDE8E6B2200.d01t02>). 
The more recent second edition was reviewed in /Information Research/ 
and deemed a "valuable reference source for teachers and students alike" 
(Wilson, 2007 <http://informationr.net/ir/reviews/revs263.html>). If you 
are currently a doctoral student in the information behavior area, you 
won't regret having this item on your bookshelf (see mine 
<http://www.jennahartel.com/information-behavior-bookshelf.html>).

The next posting on "The Literature" engages a handbook, /Theories of 
Information Behavior/ (Fisher, Erdelez, & McKechnie, 2005). In the 
meantime, the ASIS&T Annual Meeting <http://www.asis.org/asist2011/> is 
just around the corner (October 9-12, New Orleans). There are many great 
information behavior/SIG-USE events in the program. Especially, the 
keynote is by eminent information behavior scholar Professor Tom Wilson 
<http://informationr.net/tdw/> and there is a post-conference workshop 
on October 12, Where Your World Meets Mine: Information Use Across 
Domains <http://siguse.wordpress.com/>/./

See you in New Orleans!

Jenna Hartel

_References_

Case, D. (1986). Collection and organization of written information by 
social scientists and humanists:
A review and exploratory study. /Journal of Information Science, 11/(3), 
97-104.

Case, D. (1991a). Conceptual organization and retrieval of texts by 
historians: The role of memory and metaphor. /Journal of the American 
Society for Information Science, 42/(9), 657-668.

Case, D. (1991b). The collection and use of information by some American 
historians: A study of motives and methods. /The Library Quarterly, 
61/(1), 61-82.

Savolainen, R. (2003). Review of the book /Looking for information A 
Survey of research on information seeking, needs and behavior/ 
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.10246/abstract;jsessionid=E299928A21F2E14741453DDE8E6B2200.d01t02>, 
by D. O. Case. /Journal of the American Society for Information Science 
and Technology/, /54/(7), 695-697.

Wilson, T.D. (2007). Review of the book /Looking for information: a 
survey of research on information seeking, needs, and behavior, 2^nd 
ed/. <http://informationr.net/ir/reviews/revs263.html> by D. O. Case. 
/Information Research/, /12/(3).

-- 
Jenna Hartel, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Faculty of Information
University of Toronto
140 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G6
website: www.jennahartel.com


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