Mary E. Brown, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Information Science
Brown@SouthernCT.edu
Resources for Students:
Additional Resources:
(self-study module)
(self-study module)
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W e l c o m e . t o
ILS 537: Information Seeking Behavior
In a course on information behavior (older and narrower term is information seeking behavior), one should expect to study information-seeking theories, methods of observing or researching information behavior, and findings about user behaviors. This course will also touch on a bit of the cognitive mechanisms for acquiring, storing, and using information. By the end of the course, students should gain an understanding of the generalized information behaviors of different groups of people, impact of information environments on information behaviors, and the implications of cognitive functions on design of information services. The relevant literature for this course comes from library and information science, psychology, communications, and marketing.
If the ultimate purpose of recording, distributing, and storing information and artifacts is for future retrieval and use of their informational content, then the information behavior of the individual, generalizable groups, and the artifacts themselves, are--or should be--of primary concern.
In this course you will interact with and learn from the literature, as well as begin to make contributes to the literature yourself.
Chapter 1 of the text (Case's Looking for Information) begins with two quotes that I would like to reiterate here:
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What you don't know has power over you; knowing it brings it under your control, and makes it subject to your choice. Ignorance makes real choice impossible. Abraham Maslow, 1963
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Beyond obsessions, curiosity, and creativity, lies a host of motivations not to seek information. David Johnson, 1997
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Happy seeking!
Lets get started.
On this class site, every effort has been made to acknowledge the work of others. Any omission is unintentional. If anyone finds an oversight, please contact me at brown@southernct.edu immediately so that any error can be corrected.
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