Parents and their information needs

Abstract

Reports results of a British Library, Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC) supported project, conducted by City University, Department of Information Science, to study the information needs of parents, with children under the age of five, residing in the London Borough of Haringey, UK. The parents’ needs were studied using group and individual interviews, involving 53 parents and five representatives of parents’ organizations. Most parents needed information about child development, school, children’s behaviour and careers, training and education. The commonest need was for information on health and child care. Significant differences were found between the needs of single mothers, older women, fathers and ethnic minority parents. Information currency and authority was found to matter, parents turned to a wide variety of sources but oral information sources (professionals, friends and family) were the most important. Despite the fact that a large proportion of the parents used public libraries for other reasons, they were not looked upon as a key, or even a minor, source of parental information. Concludes that parents’ needs for information on schools, finance and child behaviour are largely unmet. (These results were also reported in British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC) report No. 56, 1996 with an introduction to the study in Aslib Proceedings, 49 (1) Jan 1997, 5-7).