Library use and information-seeking behavior of veterinary medical students

Veterinary medical students at Iowa State University were assessed for general use of the veterinary library and for their information-seeking behavior. The library was most frequently used for studying and for making photocopies of materials. The typical respondent relied on course textbooks and handouts for current information on unfamiliar topics, instead of using indexes or abstracts for guidance to recent literature. Light use of library information resources raises the concern that students are developing an inadequate base of retrieval skills for finding information on new procedures, diseases and drugs. No differences were found between students with and without formal bibliographic instruction in their approaches to seeking information or in library use.     

Epistemological beliefs and the information-seeking behavior of undergraduates

This study explores the relationship between undergraduates' epistemological beliefs and their information-seeking behavior. Kuhlthau's (1993) information search process (ISP) model and four models of epistemological development from educational psychology formed the theoretical foundation of this investigation. Twenty undergraduates attending an Ivy League university were interviewed about their search process as they completed a major research paper during their senior year. Epistemological beliefs affected topic, the use of mediators, search techniques, the evaluation of information, and the ability to recognize authority. Epistemological beliefs also affected several stages of the ISP model: topic selection, prefocus formulation, focus formulation, and collection. These findings provide a rich theoretical foundation for future information-seeking behavior research and will assist academic reference librarians by providing insights into the impact of undergraduates' epistemological beliefs on their information-seeking behavior.     

Issues arising from youngsters' information-seeking behavior

Much of the research on the information-seeking behavior of young people has examined either the degree to which they use particular providers or the manner in which they exploit such sources or materials. Considerably less attention has focused on the identification of generic characteristics that relate to the use of a range of information sources. Nevertheless, a recent qualitative research project undertaken in England has revealed that a variety of patterns appear to emerge even when sources of different types are used. While a few are indicative of the nature of the information-seeking process itself, some pertain to users' information-seeking problems and others to patterns of behavior. Many of the recurring features of user behavior reflect attempts by youngsters to simplify the task of information seeking and reduce the effort expended.     

Improving information-seeking behavior among business majors

The current generation of college students has used the Internet to access information since the early 1990s. No assessment of information use, quality, variety, and reliability of information generally occurs at both the student and faculty level. In this paper, we use a package of teaching methods targeted towards improving information-seeking behavior among graduate and undergraduate business majors. The effectiveness of the teaching package is assessed through an evaluation of student term papers and quality of resources used. We find that the package of teaching methods implemented does result in significant improvement in information-seeking behavior, especially among undergraduate business majors.     

国外高校群体信息查寻行为研究综述

查寻信息已经成为人们日常生活、工作、学习中不可缺少的行为,本文从信息查寻行为的研究方法、影响因素、研究结果应用等三方面对国外高校群体信息查寻行为研究进行综述.     

Users' information-seeking behavior on a medical library Website

The Central Medical Library (CMK) at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, started to build a library Website that included a guide to library services and resources in 1997. The evaluation of Website usage plays an important role in its maintenance and development. Analyzing and exploring regularities in the visitors'' behavior can be used to enhance the quality and facilitate delivery of information services, identify visitors'' interests, and improve the server''s performance. The analysis of the CMK Website users'' navigational behavior was carried out by analyzing the Web server log files. These files contained information on all user accesses to the Website and provided a great opportunity to learn more about the behavior of visitors to the Website. The majority of the available tools for Web log file analysis provide a predefined set of reports showing the access count and the transferred bytes grouped along several dimensions. In addition to the reports mentioned above, the authors wanted to be able to perform interactive exploration and ad hoc analysis and discover trends in a user-friendly way. Because of that, we developed our own solution for exploring and analyzing the Web logs based on data warehousing and online analytical processing technologies. The analytical solution we developed proved successful, so it may find further application in the field of Web log file analysis. We will apply the findings of the analysis to restructuring the CMK Website.     

A comparative study on information-seeking behaviors of domestic and international business students

This study investigates information-seeking behavior of one particular segment of international students—international students seeking degrees in the field of business. The author surveyed domestic and international business students enrolled in the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The survey was designed to compare their perceptions of library services and information-seeking behaviors. This study focused on three aspects: (1) how domestic and international business students assess the effectiveness of library instruction sessions; (2) how domestic and international business students use library services; and (3) how domestic and international business students use the Internet for their research. The survey results offer insights into understanding different perceptions of these two student groups with respect to their library use patterns and research strategies.     

Deconstructing proxy health information-seeking behavior: A systematic review

Seeking health-related information on behalf of or because of others is a common activity in everyday life and a topic of constant interest across multiple disciplines. The research aims to characterize recent research progress and provide a comprehensive framework of proxy health information-seeking behavior (PHISB). A total of 47 studies published after 2003 were selected, followed by structural encoding. The main contributions include 1) a summary of the key characteristics of individuals who often access health information through proxy seekers; 2) types of health information surrogates sought and sources employed; 3) a classification scheme of factors influencing PHISB; 4) a synthesis of how health information used and its subsequent outcomes; 5) a theoretical framework for proxy health information-seeking. Results point to an intellectual benchmark for future exploring related issues. The findings can shed light on public health intervention and management, especially through guiding search strategies to help people obtain relevant, helpful, and credible health information.     

Health literacy and health information-seeking behavior of immigrants in South Korea

Health disparities are a significant source of inequity between immigrants and native people in South Korea. The present study investigated how immigrants seek health information for their different purposes according to their health literacy ability and sociodemographic backgrounds. The study assessed immigrants' health literacy skills with the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM) and conducted surveys (N = 310) in districts with high immigrant populations. Overall, there were significant associations between health literacy ability, sociodemographic characteristics, and health information-seeking behavior among participants. The findings of the study extend the literature by addressing the association between health literacy and health information-seeking behavior in diverse sociodemographic contexts. Understanding the dynamics between the three factors provides insights for developing effective health information services and public policies to mitigate health disparities experienced by immigrants, ensuring the critical roles of online health information and health professionals as preferred or credible sources.     

Application of radio frequency identification technology to study library users' information-seeking behavior

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has application to research on information-seeking behavior of library users. A user study was conducted to track traveling paths using the RFID system. Three undergraduate students carried a reader/writer and explored information sources in a library to complete a given set of tasks. Data regarding the traveling paths and information sources used were collected. The information offers insight into participants' information-seeking patterns. For example, all participants started in the online public access catalog zone; they used secondary sources for fact-based tasks more than for topic-based tasks. In addition, they spent the most time exploring the general book zone. A small percentage of tag recordings had to be removed or created because of errors in transmission readings; however, the procedure and results of the experiment were not affected. The results suggest that RFID technology provides data accurate enough to explain library users' information-seeking behavior, and can be applied to future studies.     

Junior high students and Think Alouds: Generating information-seeking process data using concurrent verbal protocols

Twelve participants completed over 140 concurrent verbal protocols (Think Alouds) as they searched for information using two CD-ROM encyclopedias. The ability to generate Think Alouds varied among the participants. The 2,200 statements were coded as defining, planning, monitoring, or evaluating. All participants made a majority of defining statements, but the number of planning and monitoring statements varied among participants. It was found that some participants were in the acquisition phase, a phase where people are less likely to be able to do the task and think about the task at the same time. Other participants were able to plan and ask questions, characteristic of the consolidation phase. In a few searches, some participants seemed to be in the consultation phase. This was characterized by the ability to perform skills, plan an approach, and discuss difficulties and problems with themselves. Researchers need to be conscious of levels of self-direction so that the most complete Think Aloud data can be gathered from participants.     

Ethnographic study of business students' information-seeking behavior: Implications for improved library practices

This study aim to gain insight into the information-seeking habits of upper-division business students. While studying information-seeking habits is a large subcategory of information literacy, not much has been published on the information-seeking habits of business students. The majority of studies conducted in this area use the survey as the data-collection instrument. This study uses ethnographic research methods such as journaling to collect data on this unique user group. Ethnographic methods allow the researcher to capture rich qualitative information that will yield a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the user group's needs. Findings are examined by using thematic qualitative analysis techniques. Information gathered for this study will be used to develop new services and information literacy components for business students.     

Theories for practitioners: two frameworks for studying consumer health information-seeking behavior.

Consumer health information studies in library and information science (LIS) are typically not grounded within a theoretical framework. This article explains the importance of theory to LIS research in general, and the specific value of using theories from other disciplines to study consumers' health information-seeking behavior. The argument is supported with two examples: Miller's psychological theory of blunting and monitoring behavior and Granovetter's sociological theory of the strength of weak ties. These theories can be applied by practitioner-researchers to investigate a variety of research problems.     

Electronic resources at the University of Sharjah medical library: an investigation of students' information-seeking behavior

Electronic information is becoming prevalent worldwide, and its use is growing exponentially as more and more users are recognizing the potential that it offers in terms of access and delivery. However, with the introduction of new tools for e-information searching and retrieval, users have to readjust their information-seeking behavior to cope with the corresponding changes. The University of Sharjah library is steadily increasing its investment in e-resources to offer ubiquitous access to the growing body of literature in areas that interest the community it serves. This study reports the findings of a survey conducted to investigate the information-seeking behavior of medical students at the medical library. Results showed evidence of use of e-resources, but they did not explicitly establish that some of the major problems mentioned by participants did hinder the information searches of the respondents. An extensive literature review sets the background for the study.     

Biomedical researchers and students knowledge about predatory journals

BackgroundThe number of predatory journals is constantly growing and creating a major threat. Researchers in biomedical sciences should be aware of predatory publishers and be able to recognize them.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to assess biomedical researchers' knowledge about predatory journals both before and after showing them an infographic explaining these journals and their publishing model.MethodsThis study was conducted with a sample of biomedical researchers and students. Subjects answered two questionnaires, one before explaining a designed infographic to each participant through a direct face-to-face interview.ResultsA total of 158 participants were included in this study, with a mean age of 22.6 (±1.72) years. They were 122 (77.2%) undergraduates and 36 (22.8%) graduate students. The median number of research projects our subjects participated in was 1 (0–5), and the median number of published projects was 0 (0–3). Awareness of predatory journals or Beall's List improved from 7% and 2.5%, respectively, before the infographic to 97.5% and 94.9% after the infographic.ConclusionOur results indicate the beneficial use of the designed infographic to improve young researchers' awareness of predatory journals. We encourage research institutions and universities to effectively spread awareness of predatory journals.     

The information-seeking behavior of pastoral clergy: A study of the interaction of their work worlds and work roles

This study asked whether the information-seeking behavior of pastoral clergy was governed by the interaction of their work worlds and work roles. It was proposed that the pastor operates in a closed system when world and role are significantly dependent upon each other and in an open system of information-seeking when world and role are less dependent upon each other. The study was grounded in the sense-making theory of information seeking developed by Dervin and colleagues, and in a combining of social network theory and role theory. The investigator employed a mailed survey with a large stratified random sample of 378 pastoral clergy from six religious groups and structured interviews with 20 practicing clergy and qualitative techniques to analyze the content.Findings indicate that pastoral clergy tended to use different types of sources in different roles and that certain combinations of pastoral worlds and pastoral roles influenced whether the information-seeking behavior would be open or closed. The theological world contributed to a closed pattern in all three roles, while the denominational and congregational worlds helped produce this effect in only the administrative role.