Everyday Life Information Research Articles

Kūrybiškumas, įtinklintas mokymas(is) ir visapusiškesnių pažintinių gebėjimų ugdymas universitetinėse studijose

Various interest-driven groups and communities emerge due to human creativity, creative efforts of individuals, contemporary information sharing culture and accumulation of knowledge through networking. Meanwhile, constant innovations give impetus to the development of societal life and its multiple dimensions. The greatest change in education brought by the new technologies, which are still becoming more and more social in their nature, is the emergence of the new paradigm, where the two – learning and teaching – processes have become one. Creativity cannot be separated from knowledge building in contemporary society. This article focuses on creativity in relation to networked learning/teaching and the development of deeper cognitive skills of students and draws on three viewpoints from contemporary research literature pertaining to the phenomenon of creativity: Czikszentmihalyi’s systems theory, the investment theory developed by Sternberg and Lubart and a group of viewpoints focusing on problem solving and finding. In relation to networked learning/teaching and the development of deeper cognitive skills at university level, creativity may be seen as related to critical literacy – critical reading and writing skills, analytical skills, ability to make judgements about texts, ability to create texts (printed, digital, visual, multimodal, etc.) as well as ability to apply the acquired information and skills in everyday life, work and task performance in order to implement changes in one’s social environment. In Web 2.0 era, the new social technologies supply multiple tools for creation, publication, assessment and critique. The tools are very important in education. Higher education institutions face the necessity to make use of the opportunities offered by the technologies so that they remain relevant for students, who need a range of skills to be successful in contemporary society: digital literacy, media literacy, critical literacy, collaboration and communication skills, unlearning old skills and re-learning new skills, i.e. what is often referred to as multiple literacies of the 21st century.

In Search We Trust

Nowadays, people live in a society that has fuelled the growth of information delivered across many communication channels. Technology has enabled the ‘knowledification' of our society (providing information through digital means). Undoubtedly, the Internet is the world's largest communication network which has ported data across various conduits to provide information and in many ways, continues to shape us as a society. Information if available '24/7' often contributing towards technological connectivity and technological anxiety. Some of the key factors which have contributed to this are the sense of information availability and searchability. Moreover, digital search has assumed a position of central importance in the way that people access and use online information and services in everyday life. In this article, the author examines the dominance of search, the power it presents to those who control it, its role in shaping access to information, and its capacity to function as a reflection of our society. By shaping both what people know and how people know it, search engines and their organisations are able to wield an immense amount of social power. In doing so, the author revisits the concept of search and unmasks its ability to act as a social control or gatekeepers of information which shapes society. The contribution of this paper is summarised in the Search Engine Success Model which examines how society is shaped through search engine organisations who are gatekeepers of information.

Parental perceptions of young children's information behavior related to free-time activities

This poster presents an exploration of parental perceptions of the everyday life information behaviors of children between 4 and 8 years of age. Twenty-three parents/caregivers completed a survey about their children's information behaviors related to their hobbies and interests. Findings indicate that young children exhibit a heavy reliance on interpersonal interactions for information seeking and information sharing, while information use is more likely to be an individual activity. Information behaviors were evident in children who engaged in a variety of free-time activities, though not all free-time activities resulted in reported engagement in information behaviors. The findings of this study indicate that children as young as 4 years of age engage in observable information behaviors related to their everyday free-time activities. Additional research is needed to better understand young children's everyday life information behaviors.

Impacts of social media usage on the outcomes of students’ everyday life information seeking

ABSTRACTUniversity students’ social media use for everyday life information seeking (ELIS) opens up opportunities for seeking information from weak ties, but it may exacerbate issues such as information overload. Currently, it is unclear whether social media use affects the outcome of ELIS. The current study surveyed undergraduate and graduate students to test whether the frequent uses of (a) social networking sites (SNS), (b) microblogs, (c) social question and answer sites (Social Q&A), and (d) Web search engines affect (a) level of satisfaction with the quality of ELIS results and (b) level of difficulty in ELIS. Gender and study level were included as control variables. ANOVA tests of the 1,144 responses found that the frequent use of SNS, microblogs, and Web search engines each had significant effects on ELIS satisfaction level. Frequent microblog use had a significant effect on ELIS difficulty. Interestingly, the effects of SNS, microblogs, and Web search engine usage showed a U‐shaped relationship. The heavy‐users as well as non‐users of social media experienced higher level of satisfaction and lower level of difficulties. It was the occasional users who were more troubled, as were underclassmen and master's students. These user groups could benefit from more social media information literacy training. The current study shows that social media use does make a difference in ELIS. Future studies may further test the influence of social media use on specific types of ELIS problems.

The Information Behavior of a New Generation: Children and Teens in the 21 st Century ed. by Jamshid Beheshti and Andrew Large (review)

Reviewed by: The Information Behavior of a New Generation: Children and Teens in the 21st Century ed. by Jamshid Beheshti and Andrew Large Dr. Daniel Roland The Information Behavior of a New Generation: Children and Teens in the 21st Century, ed. Jamshid Beheshti and Andrew Large. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013. 252 p. (ISBN 978-0-8108-8594-3). The title of this book may likely catch the attention of every parent, teacher, librarian, and other adult observers of teenagers perpetually engaged with cellphones, computers, and other digital tools, who [End Page 424] have wondered about the effects that this new technology is having in the lives of this latest generation. Much like the adults of an earlier generation who had similar questions about the effects of television on their children, we want to understand what it is that seems so addictive and indispensible about this technology with which our young are continually texting, listening to music, watching videos, taking and posting pictures and videos, let alone tweeting, liking, and poking. This concern is heightened, in that the normal communication gap between parents and children, adults and youth, has taken on a new dimension, as our children are able to instantly check facts on the Internet, learn skills from watching YouTube rather than asking for parental guidance, and generally know what is going on in the world more quickly, and often more reliably, than their parents. Unfortunately, the title may suggest more than the book is able to deliver in helping one to understand the information behavior of this first generation of the 21st century. In their introduction, Jamshid Beheshti and Andrew Large cite the social networking phenomenon “into which children and teens have immersed themselves with enthusiasm,” as the first rationale for the book, and one could argue that the book would be much better if it had focused exclusively on this topic. However, the editors also sought to facilitate a “broad remit [in] the examination of information behavior [that draws from] the disciplines of education, educational psychology, and computer science, as well as from library and information science.” (p. v) While an admirable goal, the result of this is several chapters with extensive background information and conceptual foundations, but which often ask more questions than provide answers. Indeed, the book seems better suited for those readers seeking to design and conduct research on the information behavior of teens and children than for those librarians, teachers, and other adults actively engaged with this generation and hoping to implement research findings into their services, lesson plans, strategic planning, and so on. To be certain, this book does offer useful chapters. K-12 and academic librarians alike will appreciate Leanne Bowler and Valerie Nesset’s chapter on information literacy. June Abbas and Denise E. Agosto compiled an exhaustive literature review on the everyday life information of young people, a chapter that comes the closest to letting the subjects speak for themselves on their information needs, how they go about seeking information, the barriers they encounter, and the nature and role of “information grounds” in their lives. Eliza Dresang provides a valuable chapter for libraries and librarians looking to attract and interact with this generation. Agosto and Abbas provide another thorough review of the literature on the topic of youth and social networking and identify four major motivations young people have for engaging in social networking sites and four major benefits they gain from doing so. Shaheen Shariff presents the dark side of social networking in addressing the issue of cyber-bullying and Dana Hanson-Baldauf introduces the reader to the social and economic problems faced by young adults with intellectual disabilities, including bullying and lack of access to information technology adequate to meet their everyday life information needs. In conclusion, The Information Behavior of a New Generation is a book perhaps best suited for doctoral students in the library, education, or communication fields in the pre-proposal stage. Each chapter includes an extensive reference list that adds to [End Page 425] the value of the text and more than a few provide questions for future research. Likewise, the book is perhaps less suited for K-12 teachers and...

도시와 농어촌 청소년의 일상 정보 행태 비교 연구

This study compared the everyday-life information behaviors of urban and rural adolescents to suggest ways that school library information services can better meet the information needs of each of these groups. It focused its comparison not only on the everyday-life information-seeking behaviors but also on kinds of information grounds and barriers forming information grounds. Two qualitative methods, written activity logs and semi-structured in-depth interviews, were used to examine everyday-life information behaviors of adolescents. It is expected that the proposed strategies will be used in planning actual school library information services for urban or rural youths.

International students' everyday life information seeking: The informational value of social networking sites

Sojourns to other countries, such as for studying abroad, are increasingly common. However, adjusting to life in a different country can be stressful and require significant effort. Sojourners need to not only maintain and expand their social networks, but they also continuously seek information about their new environment. While international students are a sizable group, their daily information behavior is not well understood. This study posits that social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook, may play an important role in international students' everyday life information seeking (ELIS). Using descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and structural equation modeling (SEM), the study analyzed international students' everyday life information needs, their usage of SNS for ELIS, and the relationships among demographics, personality traits, SNS usage, and perceived usefulness of the acquired everyday life information. Findings indicate that a majority of the respondents frequently used SNS for ELIS. Younger students, undergraduates, and extroverts were more likely to use SNS for ELIS, while no gender difference was found. Notably, among the nine user characteristics and behavior factors, SNS usage emerged as the only positive predictor of perceived usefulness of acquired information in meeting daily needs. This indicates that SNS serve as a valuable channel for purposeful everyday life information seeking. Beyond its social support value, the ELIS value of SNS is a fruitful area for future research.

Sense‐making across space and time: Implications for the organization and findability of information

AbstractThis paper presents the results from a study of information behaviors, with specific focus on information organisation‐related behaviours conducted as part of a larger daily diary study with 34 participants. The findings indicate that organization of information in everyday life is a problematic area due to various factors. The self‐evident one is the inter‐subjectivity between the person who may have organized the information and the person looking for that same information (Berlin et. al., 1993). Increasingly though, we are not just looking for information within collections that have been designed by someone else, but within our own personal collections of information, which frequently include books, electronic files, photos, records, documents, desktops, web bookmarks, and portable devices. The passage of time between when we categorized or classified the information, and the time when we look for the same information, poses several problems of intra‐subjectivity, or the difference between our own past and present perceptions of the same information. Information searching, and hence the retrieval of information from one's own collection of information in everyday life involved a spatial and temporal coordination with one's own past selves in a sort of cognitive and affective time travel, just as organizing information is a form of anticipatory coordination with one's future information needs. This has implications for finding information and also on personal information management.

Relationships between personality traits and attitudes toward the sense of smell.

Olfactory perception appears to be linked to personality traits. This study aimed to determine whether personality traits influence human attitudes toward sense of smell. Two-hundred participants’ attitudes toward their senses of smell and their personality traits were measured using two self-administered questionnaires: the Importance of Olfaction Questionnaire and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised. Demographics and olfactory function were also assessed using a self-administered questionnaire. Gender-induced differences were present in attitudes toward sense of smell. Women participants were more dependent than men participants on olfactory cues for daily decision-making. In addition, as participants evaluated their own olfactory functions more positively, they relied more on olfactory information in everyday life. To determine a relationship between personality traits and attitudes toward sense of smell, Spearman partial correlation analyses were conducted, with controlling the factors that might influence attitudes with respect to sense of smell (i.e., gender and self-awareness of olfactory function) as covariates. Participants who scored high on the lie-scale (i.e., socially desirable and faking good), tended to use olfactory cues for daily decision-making related both to social communication and product purchase. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate a significant association between personality traits and attitudes toward sense of smell.

The Role of Information for People Planning for Retirement

This study presents the preliminary findings from research on the Everyday Life Information Seeking behaviours of Korean government officials in their 50s. The main objectives of this study were to characterize the daily life of baby boomers waiting for retirement by understanding their basic information use contexts, and to also identify a range of information seeking and search behaviours. Sixteen people, aged between 50 and 56, participated in this study. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The data was analyzed from four perspectives: 1) information seeking environments; 2) personal context of information seeking; 3) patterns of information searching; 4) recognition of discontinuation of information seeking. The qualitative findings indicate that the participants preferred to use physical materials and their existing social networks as information sources. The study participants generally held unfavourable or uncomfortable views of libraries as their source of information to satisfy their information needs. Nevertheless, the participants expected that libraries, acting as information centres, would be another useful place for their lives if libraries continue to transform. Finally, the study reveals the relationship among environment, context, and interaction with respect to personal information-seeking behaviours based on the analysis. This study should serve as strategic implications for library practitioners to develop the information services and the corresponding library management process in accordance to the potential and powerful evolving user group in a future aged society.

과학기술분야 연구활동 단계별 문제상황 극복을 위한 정보행동 연구

본 연구는 과학기술분야 R&D 라이프사이클 각 단계 세부연구 목표를 달성하는 과정에서 이루어지는 정보행동(정보요구, 정보검색, 정보도구, 정보채널, 정보장애)을 과학기술커뮤니티 환경의 맥락에서 분석하였다. 이 연구는 의미형성이론, 일상생활정보탐색이론, 활동이론에 근거하여 과학기술자를 대상으로 질적 인터뷰연구를 통해 이루어졌으며, 연구결과 과학기술분야 R&D 라이프사이클 5단계는 14개의 세부 정보행동 단계로 이루어짐을 밝혀내었다. 과학기술 R&D 연구 세부단계별로 문제상황 극복을 위한 정보행동 규명은 연구자와 연구환경의 변화를 이해할 뿐만 아니라 향후 도서관 및 정보서비스 기관에서 과학기술 전주기적 정보서비스 전략을 수립하는데 기초자료로 활용될 것이다.

Pleasure Reading Offers Educational, Social, and Personal Benefits for Young Teenagers

Objective – To investigate the role that pleasure reading plays in the lives of young teenagers.
 
 Design – A series of focus groups were used.
 
 Setting – Focus groups were held in nine junior high schools in an eastern Canadian municipality.
 
 Subjects – Participants consisted of 68 students in grades 7, 8, and 9, ranging in age from 12-15 years old. Seventy percent of participants were girls and 30% were boys. 
 
 Methods – A semi-structured interview protocol was used. Responses were coded and categorized by using QSR NUD*IST, and a grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data.
 
 Main Results – This study found that young teenagers derive numerous benefits from pleasure reading. From an educational perspective, pleasure reading helps improve literacy and thinking skills, and helps young teenagers clarify and explore career goals. From a social perspective, pleasure reading helps young teenagers understand historical and current events, helps them develop compassion and empathy, empowers them to develop and act on their beliefs, and helps them to understand the consequences of risky behaviors. From a personal perspective, pleasure reading provides young teenagers with entertainment, relaxation, reassurance, a creative outlet, and a means of escape.
 
 Conclusion – Reading for pleasure provides a means of everyday life information seeking for young teenagers. It helps them improve skills and learn about themselves, their relationships, and their values, all of which help them to make the transition to adulthood.

Young adults and everyday-life information: The role of news media

There is a paucity of research examining the everyday-life information seeking of young people, especially investigating the role that the news media has in providing information to young people for use in their everyday lives. A qualitative, interpretivist approach is adopted, involving 34 students, ages 18 to 25, from an Australian university. First, 20 students were interviewed about their news seeking (including topics and sources). Then 14 students participated in verbal protocol analysis, which involved a series of tasks concerning online and print newspapers. Lastly, students were interviewed about how they sought everyday-life information and whether they thought that they had incidentally acquired or encountered information on everyday-life topics in online or print newspapers in the recent past. Findings indicated that, contrary to expectations, traditional print media still played a role for young people, and social media were perceived as important for communication with friends, rather than for news gathering. Purposeful information seeking was more likely to occur online, but both print and online newspapers retained an incidental role in providing information to students for their everyday lives. Participants used a range of media to suit their particular needs and purposes. Thus, access to a wide variety of sources is important for everyday-life information seeking (ELIS) by young people.

The information seeking and use behaviors of retired investors

This exploratory study examines the information seeking and use behaviors of a group of US retired or near-retirement investors from everyday life information seeking and serious leisure perspectives. Although primarily qualitative, it also collects and analyzes quanitative data to describe retired investors’ information preferences and use. Semi-structured interviews and journaling are used to examine the information seeking behaviors of a diverse group of investors and to assess the impact that personal characteristics, such as sex, socio-economic status, and educational attainment have on their behaviors. Findings suggest that the female investors studied were less likely to create information intensive fields and that this tendency is exacerbated by low educational attainment. Furthermore, the male investors studied were more likely to adopt Internet technology for their investing information seeking regardless of their educational attainment. Recommendations are made for improving information services to this important segment of the population.

상황인식 컴퓨팅의 개념과 도서관 정보서비스에의 적용

본 연구는 유비쿼터스 컴퓨팅 연구의 중요한 주제로 거론되고 있는 상황인식컴퓨팅의 도서관 정보서비스 적용에 관한 연구이다. 상황인식컴퓨팅은 이용자의 상황정보를 수집, 분석하여 이용자에게 최적화된 서비스를 제공하는 모바일 컴퓨팅 기술이다. 상황인식컴퓨팅의 개념은 90년대 말부터 논의되었으나 기술적 제한으로 인해 최근까지는 그 현실성이 크게 부각되지 않았었다. 최근의 정보통신기술의 급속한 발전과 스마트폰 사용을 필두로 한 모바일 정보검색의 대중화는 상황인식컴퓨팅을 현실에 적용시킬 수 있게 만들었으며 다양한 분야에서 그 유용성을 확인시켜주고 있다. 본 논문은 상황인식컴퓨팅의 개념을 소개하고 각종 사례를 살펴보며, 상황인식 컴퓨팅 서비스에 대한 이용자의 인식, 요구를 조사하여 도서관 환경에 적용해봄으로써 보다 이용자 중심적인 도서관 정보서비스를 제안하고자 한다. This study explored the concept of context-aware computing and its application to the library and information services. Context-aware computing represents mobile computing techniques which gather, analyze user's contextual information and provide appropriate information services for the specific user. The idea was proposed in the late 90's but it was not widely available to the public because of the technology limitation. Recent technology development made context-aware computing possible to apply to our everyday-life information seeking using smart phone and showed the usefulness of its application. This study introduced the concept of context-aware computing with some examples of it, and finally tried to propose some of its applications to the library and information services.

Information as exclusion: Towards a critical understanding of everyday life

AbstractThis paper seeks to critique the theoretical components of everyday life information seeking through an exogenous incorporation of the sociology of everyday life. In particular, it focuses on the way in which everyday life spaces are increasingly being produced and sustained by practices of surveillance in order to structure information users into geo‐demographic typologies of information consumers. The argument advanced is that an analysis of the production of space can enable a more theoretically solid groundwork for understanding the relationship between information users and the social contexts of everyday information seeking.

Seeking God’s Will: The Experience of Information Seeking by Leaders of a Church in Transition/À la recherche de la volonté de Dieu : L’expérience de recherche d’information des dirigeants d’une Église en transition

What is the experience of information seeking (IS) by leaders of a church in transition, as they seek the will of God for their church? In this ethnographic pilot study, I begin to create a picture of leaders’ information seeking, first for personal faith building and then for corporate decision making, and I consider the impact of new technologies on these processes. Religious IS did not differ significantly from other everyday-life information seeking (ELIS) experiences, except when subjects were acting in leadership roles. Prominent themes were theological diversity and prayer.

Following the “community” thread from sociology to information behavior and informatics: Uncovering theoretical continuities and research opportunities

AbstractThe authors review five paradigms from the discipline of community sociology (functionalism, evolution, conflict, interactionism, and exchange) to assess their potential utility for understanding everyday life information behavior and technology use. Their analysis considers the ways in which each paradigm defines the concepts of community, information, and technology. It also explores the insights offered by each paradigm regarding relationships between community and both information and technology. Accordingly, the authors highlight the ways in which existing information behavior and informatics scholarship draws from similar conceptual roots. Key insights drawn from this research, as well as remaining gaps and research questions, are examined. Additionally, they consider the limitations of each approach. The authors conclude by arguing for the value of a vigorous research program regarding information behavior and technology use in communities, particularly that which takes the community as the central unit of analysis. They consider key questions that could drive such a research program, as well as potentially fruitful conceptual and methodological approaches for this endeavor.

Selecting fiction as part of everyday life information seeking

Purpose – This study seeks to examine, from the viewpoint of 12 adult fiction readers who are members of book clubs, how they go about selecting fiction books to borrow from the public library.

Les TIC catalyseurs de littératies

ICT as catalysts for literacies
 Just open the book and put the head of the pen on each word you don’t know how to pronounce it. So, it helps a lot for any who want to learn a new language.Now, technology is the best mean of people to be just as the evolution in the world. It helps people to have the capacity of reading and understand and to use information in everyday life. Information is transmitted through phone mobile, Internet, TV, where the user is free to choose the language which he masters.ICTs have invaded the lives of all Algerians in all areas. This phenomenon has become so important that it has become impossible not to take it into account in the study of human activity. Communication situations have continued to diversify and evolve. But the new element in this communication is translation, which has become an integral part of the global information society. It is a translation that has made it possible to iron out difficulties between speakers belonging to distant cultures and to facilitate access to information and knowledge in different languages. Also, the translation of WEB sites has contributed to a better understanding of world cultures. Also, internet has given people to develop literacy. But, in our research, we interrogate the way literacy affects the web and the way translation serves professional ends.Finding its fundamental purpose in commercial strategies, translation at the level of websites perfected it may be at the level of its development. It has become a means of contributing to the achievement of objectives superior to those which it was pursuing itself. At the communication level, it fulfills a specific function at the economic level and it has also a preponderant function at the level of the reconstruction of the social architecture.