Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review Wilson’s (1981) seminal article, “On user studies
and information needs” (Journal of Documentation, 1981, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 3-15) as part of a series
celebrating the Journal’s 60th anniversary.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper adopts a literature-based conceptual analysis, taking
Wilson’s paper as the starting point, and evaluating the significance of, and later developments in, the
issues dealt with in that article.
Findings – Wilson’s article has had a significant effect on the development of information science. It
dealt with several fundamental issues, including the nature of information itself and of information
need, models of information seeking and information behaviour, particularly those based on
phenomenological or “whole life” concepts, appropriate research methods for these areas, and the
nature of information science as an academic discipline.
Originality/value – The paper provides a perspective on the development of information science
over 30 years, with particular emphasis on the study of human information behaviour.
Keywords User studies, Information science, Information research
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Tom Wilson’s article “On user studies and information needs” was published in the
first issue of the Journal of Documentation in 1981 (Wilson, 1981), and is republished in
this issue. It dealt with a subject, which has remained very much, a “live” topic in the
information sciences for the intervening 25 years. (It is interesting to note that, of the
three other papers in the journal issue, the topics of two of them – the need for better
understanding of, on the one hand, citing behaviour, and, on the other, of the rationale
for the founding of new journals – also remain relevant. The basis of the fourth paper,
use of Colon Classification for retrieving passages to text, appears to belong to the past,
but who knows?)
Noting that the investigation of “information needs” had been the subject of both
debate and confusion, Wilson stated as the aim of his article:
... to attempt to reduce this confusion by devoting attention to the definition of some
concepts and by proposing the basis for a theory of the motivations for information seeking
behaviour.
These seem modest aims, appropriate for what is actually a rather short paper. It is
striking to note – whether or not the paper did indeed reduce the confusion of
terminology and concepts – how its content, and in particular the set of models which
it presented, anticipated, and arguably inspired, many of the newer concerns of
information research to the present day.
The paper has been cited over 100 times in the journals of the ISI databases, as well
as in numerous book chapters, reports and conference proceedings. The great majority
of the ISI citations are in English language library/information journals, with a small
number in broadcasting and communications sources. Nearly half are in four major
sources: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology,
Journal of Documentation, Information Processing and Management, and Library and
Information Science Research. The largest number of citations per year, 11, occurred in
2003 and 2005, showing the continuing interest in the article. Scanning the citing
articles shows that some are theoretical and methodological in character, while others
report studies of information users and information needs in variety of settings;
engineers, Ugandan entrepreneurs, migrant Hispanic farm workers, home Internet
users, young people, elderly people, history students, veterinarians, arts
administrators, agricultural managers, food consumers, academic researchers, and
many others. What seems clear from an examination of the citing papers (and the other
documents which cannot be found from a systematic citation search) is that the article
has influenced both the theory and the practice of information research.
Wilson began his article by saying that “apart from information retrieval there is
virtually no other area of information science that has occasioned as much research
effort and writing as “user studies’”. At the time the paper was written, there was
certainly a strong focus of this topic, with Wilson’s department at Sheffield taking a
leading role, through its centre for Research in User Studies (Beaulieu, 2003; Wilson,
1994; Roberts and Wilson, 1988). (As a Masters student in that department a few years
earlier, I can recall the emphasis placed on studying the state-of-the-art user surveys of
the 1960s and 1970s, such as those of Slater (1969), Mote (1971), and Meyer (1971),
typically carried out in scientific and industrial settings, and using quantitative
methods).
The study of users’ information needs has a long history (Urquhart, 1948;
Fishenden, 1965; Wilson, 1994). By 1980, the field was burgeoning in interest and
publication, but lacking clear foundations of method and conceptual framework.
Wilson’s article must be seen against that background. (As is usually the case, the
ideas were formed some time before; Wilson (2005) notes that the 1981 paper had its
origin in a seminar presentation at the University of Maryland in 1971.)
Wilson divided his paper into three main sections, dealing respectively with
“information”, “user studies”, “information needs”, and “consequences”.
Information
In the section on information, he identified an initial difficulty with the idea of
information need; information itself, which he described as a “troublesome concept”,
with no agreed definition, and a failure even to choose a definition appropriate to the
level and purpose of the research being undertaken. It is difficult to think that the
situation has improved much in the intervening years. Indeed, it may even have
worsened, as the term “information” is used ever more widely as a central concept in
the physical and biological sciences (Bawden, 2001, 2005). Within the information
sciences, the recent appearance of two special issues of leading journals devoted to the
philosophy of information (Hjørland, 2005; Herold, 2004) attests to the continuing
debate on the concept. But it may be that, precisely because of the wider scope for
using the information concept, researchers are better at distinguishing the best sense of
the meaning of the word for their purpose, as Wilson urged.
Although Wilson did not offer a specific solution to this problem in the 1981, he
later, in Wilson (2003) proposed that the information concept should be dealt with at
different integrative levels. Though the value of the theory of integrative levels for the
information sciences is not an entirely novel concept – see, for example, Hucksby
(1972) – for an early suggestion of its application to knowledge organisation –
Wilson’s idea that integration be achieved through a phenomenological approach to
information behaviour seems worthy of adoption and development by other theorists.
User studies
Turning to user studies, Wilson presented a model of information behaviour, in the
original, which he modestly described as “a way of thinking about the field” of user
studies. This – and two other models presented in the article – are the first of a
number of conceptual models, which Wilson has presented, to aid the understanding of
various aspects of human information behaviour. Although he may not have been the
first to make use of this kind of conceptual model in the information sciences, this
model, and its successors, have played a major role in popularising this approach to
understanding the concepts and inter-relationships of the subject (Wilson, 1997, 1999,
2005; Jarvelin and Wilson, 2003). Cronin (2001) describes the relation between the 1981
models and more recent offerings in these terms: “the relatively simple schemata of the
early 1980s have given way to more sophisticated attempts to model macro
behaviours”. No doubt true; yet with increasing sophistication comes a plethora of
variants and modifications. One of the strengths of Wilson’s 1981 proposals – and, I
believe, the reason they are still widely cited – is that their relative simplicity enables a
consensus understanding rare in the field. The same is surely true of Wilson (1999)
representation of the relation between human information behaviour, information
seeking and information retrieval; simple indeed, but with the power to bring clarity
where there was none before. Certainly these models are forming the basis for
education and training for these subjects (see, for example, Bawden et al., 2005).
This first 1981 model is, according to Wilson (2005) the most referred to of the
models in the set, though he does not regard it as the “key” model. The most
immediately notable thing about this model (apart from a nostalgia-inducing reference
to Prestel, a videotex system, much in vogue at the time) is the inclusion of information
providers such as estate agents or car salesrooms, and to informal information systems
in general. Inclusion of such sources is now an intrinsic part of any study of
information seeking, so that it may be difficult to recall that this is a very clear break
with past practice. It is, of course, essential to the study of “everyday life” information
seeking (Case, 2002; McKechnie, 2003; Savolainen, 2005).
Also featuring in this model is the idea of “information exchange”, a recognition of
the fact that information flow is rarely one way. Again, this may be commonly
accepted today – see, for example, Marcella and Baxter (2005) and Talja and Hansen
(2006) – but it a considerable break from the linear “information provider –
information user” picture which used to dominate the perceptions of the information
professions.
This model was later presented in a varied form (Wilson, 1999), and – with the other
1981 models – used as the basis for a revised and general model of information
behaviour (Wilson and
AbstractPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to review Wilson’s (1981) seminal article, “On user studiesand information needs” (Journal of Documentation, 1981, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 3-15) as part of a seriescelebrating the Journal’s 60th anniversary.Design/methodology/approach – This paper adopts a literature-based conceptual analysis, takingWilson’s paper as the starting point, and evaluating the significance of, and later developments in, theissues dealt with in that article.Findings – Wilson’s article has had a significant effect on the development of information science. Itdealt with several fundamental issues, including the nature of information itself and of informationneed, models of information seeking and information behaviour, particularly those based onphenomenological or “whole life” concepts, appropriate research methods for these areas, and thenature of information science as an academic discipline.Originality/value – The paper provides a perspective on the development of information scienceover 30 years, with particular emphasis on the study of human information behaviour.Keywords User studies, Information science, Information researchPaper type Research paperIntroductionTom Wilson’s article “On user studies and information needs” was published in thefirst issue of the Journal of Documentation in 1981 (Wilson, 1981), and is republished inthis issue. It dealt with a subject, which has remained very much, a “live” topic in theinformation sciences for the intervening 25 years. (It is interesting to note that, of thethree other papers in the journal issue, the topics of two of them – the need for betterunderstanding of, on the one hand, citing behaviour, and, on the other, of the rationalefor the founding of new journals – also remain relevant. The basis of the fourth paper,use of Colon Classification for retrieving passages to text, appears to belong to the past,but who knows?)Noting that the investigation of “information needs” had been the subject of bothdebate and confusion, Wilson stated as the aim of his article:... to attempt to reduce this confusion by devoting attention to the definition of someconcepts and by proposing the basis for a theory of the motivations for information seekingbehaviour.These seem modest aims, appropriate for what is actually a rather short paper. It isstriking to note – whether or not the paper did indeed reduce the confusion ofterminology and concepts – how its content, and in particular the set of models whichit presented, anticipated, and arguably inspired, many of the newer concerns ofinformation research to the present day.The paper has been cited over 100 times in the journals of the ISI databases, as wellas in numerous book chapters, reports and conference proceedings. The great majorityof the ISI citations are in English language library/information journals, with a small
number in broadcasting and communications sources. Nearly half are in four major
sources: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology,
Journal of Documentation, Information Processing and Management, and Library and
Information Science Research. The largest number of citations per year, 11, occurred in
2003 and 2005, showing the continuing interest in the article. Scanning the citing
articles shows that some are theoretical and methodological in character, while others
report studies of information users and information needs in variety of settings;
engineers, Ugandan entrepreneurs, migrant Hispanic farm workers, home Internet
users, young people, elderly people, history students, veterinarians, arts
administrators, agricultural managers, food consumers, academic researchers, and
many others. What seems clear from an examination of the citing papers (and the other
documents which cannot be found from a systematic citation search) is that the article
has influenced both the theory and the practice of information research.
Wilson began his article by saying that “apart from information retrieval there is
virtually no other area of information science that has occasioned as much research
effort and writing as “user studies’”. At the time the paper was written, there was
certainly a strong focus of this topic, with Wilson’s department at Sheffield taking a
leading role, through its centre for Research in User Studies (Beaulieu, 2003; Wilson,
1994; Roberts and Wilson, 1988). (As a Masters student in that department a few years
earlier, I can recall the emphasis placed on studying the state-of-the-art user surveys of
the 1960s and 1970s, such as those of Slater (1969), Mote (1971), and Meyer (1971),
typically carried out in scientific and industrial settings, and using quantitative
methods).
The study of users’ information needs has a long history (Urquhart, 1948;
Fishenden, 1965; Wilson, 1994). By 1980, the field was burgeoning in interest and
publication, but lacking clear foundations of method and conceptual framework.
Wilson’s article must be seen against that background. (As is usually the case, the
ideas were formed some time before; Wilson (2005) notes that the 1981 paper had its
origin in a seminar presentation at the University of Maryland in 1971.)
Wilson divided his paper into three main sections, dealing respectively with
“information”, “user studies”, “information needs”, and “consequences”.
Information
In the section on information, he identified an initial difficulty with the idea of
information need; information itself, which he described as a “troublesome concept”,
with no agreed definition, and a failure even to choose a definition appropriate to the
level and purpose of the research being undertaken. It is difficult to think that the
situation has improved much in the intervening years. Indeed, it may even have
worsened, as the term “information” is used ever more widely as a central concept in
the physical and biological sciences (Bawden, 2001, 2005). Within the information
sciences, the recent appearance of two special issues of leading journals devoted to the
philosophy of information (Hjørland, 2005; Herold, 2004) attests to the continuing
debate on the concept. But it may be that, precisely because of the wider scope for
using the information concept, researchers are better at distinguishing the best sense of
the meaning of the word for their purpose, as Wilson urged.
Although Wilson did not offer a specific solution to this problem in the 1981, he
later, in Wilson (2003) proposed that the information concept should be dealt with at
different integrative levels. Though the value of the theory of integrative levels for the
information sciences is not an entirely novel concept – see, for example, Hucksby
(1972) – for an early suggestion of its application to knowledge organisation –
Wilson’s idea that integration be achieved through a phenomenological approach to
information behaviour seems worthy of adoption and development by other theorists.
User studies
Turning to user studies, Wilson presented a model of information behaviour, in the
original, which he modestly described as “a way of thinking about the field” of user
studies. This – and two other models presented in the article – are the first of a
number of conceptual models, which Wilson has presented, to aid the understanding of
various aspects of human information behaviour. Although he may not have been the
first to make use of this kind of conceptual model in the information sciences, this
model, and its successors, have played a major role in popularising this approach to
understanding the concepts and inter-relationships of the subject (Wilson, 1997, 1999,
2005; Jarvelin and Wilson, 2003). Cronin (2001) describes the relation between the 1981
models and more recent offerings in these terms: “the relatively simple schemata of the
early 1980s have given way to more sophisticated attempts to model macro
behaviours”. No doubt true; yet with increasing sophistication comes a plethora of
variants and modifications. One of the strengths of Wilson’s 1981 proposals – and, I
believe, the reason they are still widely cited – is that their relative simplicity enables a
consensus understanding rare in the field. The same is surely true of Wilson (1999)
representation of the relation between human information behaviour, information
seeking and information retrieval; simple indeed, but with the power to bring clarity
where there was none before. Certainly these models are forming the basis for
education and training for these subjects (see, for example, Bawden et al., 2005).
This first 1981 model is, according to Wilson (2005) the most referred to of the
models in the set, though he does not regard it as the “key” model. The most
immediately notable thing about this model (apart from a nostalgia-inducing reference
to Prestel, a videotex system, much in vogue at the time) is the inclusion of information
providers such as estate agents or car salesrooms, and to informal information systems
in general. Inclusion of such sources is now an intrinsic part of any study of
information seeking, so that it may be difficult to recall that this is a very clear break
with past practice. It is, of course, essential to the study of “everyday life” information
seeking (Case, 2002; McKechnie, 2003; Savolainen, 2005).
Also featuring in this model is the idea of “information exchange”, a recognition of
the fact that information flow is rarely one way. Again, this may be commonly
accepted today – see, for example, Marcella and Baxter (2005) and Talja and Hansen
(2006) – but it a considerable break from the linear “information provider –
information user” picture which used to dominate the perceptions of the information
professions.
This model was later presented in a varied form (Wilson, 1999), and – with the other
1981 models – used as the basis for a revised and general model of information
behaviour (Wilson and
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