The visceral need remains “unarticulated” until we verbalize it to ourselves or someone else. In the process of trying to state what it is we want to know, the information need usually comes out in an imperfect and unsatisfactory statement (“compromised, “in Taylor’s words). Brenda Dervin’s (1983a) investigations into “sense making” employ a similar concept: the information gap. That is, until we recognize the existence of a gap in our knowledge – often signaled by a mild anxiety and/or a need to act – we are not motivated to search for information. However, whether we ask questions, read books, or take another kind of action to find something out, it is important to recognize that information often comes to us, fortuitously, in the course of our normal lives. The serendipity factor- the seemingly accidental discovery of relevant information –operates more often than we might expect.