Citation - Wilson, T. D. (1994). Information needs and uses: fifty years of progress, in: B.C. Vickery, (Ed.), Fifty years of information progress: a Journal of Documentation review, (pp. 15- 51) London: Aslib. [Available at http://informationr.net/tdw/publ/papers/1994FiftyYears.html]
history of user study
1948 - the Royal Society Scientific Information Conference (UK) (1916, 20s-40s): study in Library system
1958 - International Conference on Scientific Information: scientist information seeking research
1976 - Centre for Research in User Studies (CRUS), University of Sheffield: British Library R. & D. Department
history of information seeking behavior
Library Surveys
User-centered studies
FAILURE (failure to find relevant materials)
Information use (query-as-use, how-many/what-docs-be-used)
Information transfer/exchange
“this topic has rarely been the subject of specific investigations”
1966 - Allen: laboratories information (MIT)
1991 - Schrader: business information exchange (Policy research)
user satisfaction
methodology
system
person-centered, cognitive approach (Belkin, Dervin, Wilson)
phenomenological perspective -
Schutz:
“individuals construct their own social 'world' from the world of appearances around them”
“all of the devices we create to organize the cognitive structures of the world (libraries, retrieval systems, encyclopaedias, etc.) are socially constructed and help the individual to construct his or her own 'meanings'.”
“We can see information needs, therefore, as derived from the individual's attempts to make sense of the world (as Dervin), and information-seeking behaviour as almost always frustrated in some degree by the division between the meanings embedded in information systems and the highly personal meaning of the information-seeker's problem.”
[note]: Wilson only use Schutz's perspective to interpret seeking behavior, not using his social action theory as the methodology base of information behavior.
information-seeking-behavior model