The annotations for these readings provide insights into the articles as well as suggest sections on which you should focus. These readings and annotations are adapted from the syllabi of Barbara Wildemuth and other SILS faculty and instructors.

Introduction and Basic Concepts

Tuesday, August 18

#1: Intro

Class introductions. Review syllabus and course policies. Discussion of invidividual information interactions.

Thursday, August 20

#2: Trends in human information interaction research

In class: sign-up for day to present Evidence Summary

These two brief articles were written as part of the 10th anniversary celebration (in 2009) of the Special Interest Group on Information Needs, Seeking, and Use of the American Society for Information Science & Technology. Together, they provide a brief historical overview of the general directions taken in information behavior research.

Wilson, T.D. (2010). Fifty years of information behavior research. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 36(3), 27-34. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-10/FebMar10_Wilson.pdf.

Wildemuth, B.M., & Case, D.O. (2010). Early information behavior research. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 36(3), 35-38. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-10/FebMar10_Wildemuth_Case.pdf.

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, August 25

#3: Theoretical perspectives and basic concepts

Due: Title of article for Evidence Summary

Each of these two readings takes a slightly different view of our field and, in particular, the portion of our field surveyed in this course.

Bates, M. J. (1999). The invisible substrate of information science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 50(12), 1043-1050. [UNC libraries]

In this article, Bates discusses the "below-the-water-line" portion of information science. While she focuses more of her attention on the content/information of concern, she does include human-information interactions among her "Three Big Questions" in information science. Read through this article quickly, to get an overview of the field as background for the semester.

Marchionini, G. (2008). Human-information interaction. Library & Information Science Research, 30(3), 165-174. [UNC libraries]

Marchionini focuses more directly on the scope of this course. Read through the entire article, but focus special attention on sections 2 and 6.

Additional readings of interest

Thursday, August 27

#4 Cognitive approaches to information behaviors

Dinet, J., Chevalier, A., & Tricot, A. (2012). Information search activity: An overview. Revue européene de psychologie appliqué, 62(2), 49-62. (Read sections 2.1-2.2.1.) [UNC libraries]

A number of models of information seeking are briefly reviewed here. Of particular interest are those described in sections 2.1-2.2.1 (as background for understanding the Ingwersen and Järvelin model.)

Ingwersen, P., & Järvelin, K. (2005). *The Turn: Integration of Information Seeking and Retrieval in Context.*Springer. [UNC libraries - electronic resource]

Section 6.1, Building the conceptual framework, p. 263-274. This section of this important book walks through the model that the authors are proposing. They believe that the model encompassses all of the information behaviors of interest to our field. The cognitive aspects of those information behaviors are at center stage. (Feel free to skim other parts of chapter 6 if you have time.)

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, September 1

#5: Affective approaches

Kuhlthau, C., Heinström, J., & Todd, R.J. (2008). The 'information search process' revisited: Is the model still useful? Information Research, 13(4), Proceedings of the 7th Conference on Information Seeking in Context, Vilnius, September 2008). http://informationr.net/ir/13-4/paper355.html.

Kuhlthau's model of the information search process is well-known and widely-used to understand the process that people go through while searching for information. It includes their cognitive behaviors (such a learning) as well as their feelings and how they vary throughout the process. The model itself is summarized in Figure 1; to read the original work on it, see the two Kuhlthau articles listed as optional reading, plus her book.

Lopatovska, I., & Arapakis, I. (2011). Theories, methods and current research on emotions in library and information science, information retrieval and human-computer interaction. Information Processing & Management, 47(4), 575-592. [UNC libraries]

This literature review provides a strong foundation for moving forward with research about emotions and their relationships with information behaviors. Focus your reading on sections 2 and 4.1. The first and last sections are overviews, so will help you put the detail into context. Skim section 3, just to get a sense of what methods have been used in studies of emotions.

Additional readings of interest

Information Needs

Thursday, September 3

#6: Experiencing an information need

Case, D.O. (2012). Information needs and information seeking. In Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior. 3rd edition. Boston: Academic Press, 77-83. [book on reserve in SILS Library - ZA3075 .L665 2012][IN SAKAI]

This chapter summarizes what we know about people's information needs, so will provide you with a good overview.

Taylor, R.S. (1968). Question negotiation and information seeking in libraries. College & Research Libraries, 29(3),178-194. (Read about the four levels of "questions," on pages 182-183; we'll come back to the rest in a few weeks.) [IN SAKAI]

This is a classic reading, so you'll want to eventually study it all. For now, we want to focus our attention on Taylor's explanation of visceral, conscious, formalized, and compromised needs.

Savolainen, R. (2006). Information use as gap-bridging: The viewpoint of sense-making methodology. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 57(8), 1116-1125. [UNC libraries]

Brenda Dervin has proposed a Sense-Making Theory to explain how people experience information needs and act on them. In this article, Savolainen focuses on gaps (i.e., information needs). One of Dervin's articles on this theory and an additional article on it by Savolainen are listed among the optional readings for today.

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, September 8

#7: Expressing information needs

Belkin, N. (1980). Anomalous states of knowledge as a basis for information retrieval. Canadian Journal of Information Science, 5,133-143. [IN SAKAI]

This, along with his 1982 Journal of Documentation article with Oddy and Brooks, are the classic works explaining this concept. It's a relatively straightforward concept; I'd like you to pay special attention to his explanation of the specifiability of an information need, p136-139, with Figure 3.

Sparck-Jones, K., Robertson, S.E., & Sanderson, M. (2007). Ambiguous requests: Implications for retrieval tests, systems and theories. ACM SIGIR Forum, 41(2), 8-17. [UNC libraries]

The problem of clear specification of information needs still causes worries for those of us who want to design effective information retrieval systems. You'll enjoy reading this relatively recent discussion of the problem by three of the field's leaders.

Nückles, M., & Ertelt, A. (2006). The problem of describing a problem: Supporting laypersons in presenting their queries to the internet-based helpdesk. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 64(8), 648-669. (Read sections 1-3, p648-651.) [UNC libraries]

The literature on expressing information needs covers a broad range of questions and domains. This article focuses on a particular situation: a computer user trying to request help in using a computer. The authors were particularly interested in developing a "script" that the user would fill out, in order to provide complete and accurate information to the expert/helper, but we'll focus our discussion on the more conceptual aspects of this problem, described in the first few sections of the article.

Bates, M.E. (1998). Finding the question behind the question. Information Outlook, 2(7), 19-21. [WILL ADD TO SAKAI]

For some very practical advice about helping library users to express their information needs, check out this article. I believe that you'll find this advice reminiscent of Taylor's 1968 suggestions for filtering the questions received at the library reference desk.

Additional readings of interest

Thursday, September 10

#8: Literature searching review lab (some practice in expressing your own information needs)

Bring your laptop to class.

Koufogiannakis, D. (2013). EBLIP7 Keynote: What we talk about when we talk about evidence. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 8(4), 6-17. http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/20486.

This article will help you understand Assignment 3 a bit better, and will help us understand what we're looking for during our searching lab.

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, September 15

#9: Studying and analyzing information needs

Due: Brief description for Diary and Analysis of an Information Seeking Event

Read and be prepared to discuss at least one additional article. Select an article (or articles) that analyze the information needs of a particular group (other than college/graduate students or scholars). Select your own or choose from the optional reading list.

Herman, E. (2004). Research in progress: Some preliminary and key insights into the information needs of the contemporary academic research. Part 1. Aslib Proceedings, 56(1), 34-47. [UNC libraries]

Based on interviews with faculty at the University of Haifa, Herman investigated 11 aspects of information needs: subject, function, nature, intellectual level, viewpoint, quantity, quality/authority, date/currency, speed of delivery, place of publication/origina, and processing/packaging. This paper focuses only on the subject and function of their information needs; Part 2, listed in our optional readings, provides more detail on other aspects of their information needs.

Gabridge, C., Gaskell, M., & Stout, A. (2008). Information seeking through students' eyes: The MIT Photo Diary Study. College & Research Libraries, 69(6), 510-523. [UNC libraries]

This article is a good example of a study carried out in an academic library to understand students' information needs and information seeking behaviors.

Additional readings of interest

Information-Seeking

Thursday, September 17

#10: Selection of information sources

Savolainen, R. (2008). Source preferences in the context of seeking problem-specific information. Information Processing & Management, 44(1): 274-293. [UNC libraries]

Savolainen uses the concepts of information source horizon and information pathway to study the sources people use in resolving everyday information needs. You'll want to read the entire paper, to get a good feel for both the concepts and his findings.

Lu, L, & Yuan, Y.C. (2011). Shall I Google it or ask the competent villain down the hall? The moderating role of information need in information source selection. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 62(1), 133-145. [UNC libraries]

This study looks at the tradeoffs that people make when selecting an information source, between the quality of the source and the accessibility of the source. The literature review will be particularly useful. The study itself, particularly the analysis, is fairly complex, but skim it to understand the main findings and their implications for practice.

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, September 22

#11: Information horizons and intro to IIR

Thursday, September 24

#12: Interactive information retrieval as part of the information seeking process

Due: Description of population and setting of interest for System/Service Proposal

Marchionini, G. (2006). Exploratory search: From finding to understanding. Communications of the ACM, 49(4), 41-46. [UNC libraries]

Exploratory search is differentiated from lookup searches (including fact retrieval, known item searches, etc.) and incorporates searches conducted for the purposes of learning and investigating. A few examples of systems that support exploratory search are presented.

Vakkari, P., & Huuskonen, S. (2012). Search effort degrades search output but improves task outcome. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 63(4), 657-670. [UNC libraries]

Unlike most studies of searching, this study goes beyond the link between search behaviors and search results and also examines the link between search results and task outcomes.

Saarinen, K., & Vakkari, P. (2013). A sign of a good book: Readers' methods of accessing fiction in the public library. Journal of Documentation, 69(5), 736-754. [UNC libraries]

Most IR systems are designed to support retrieving non-fiction. This study examines how public library users search for fiction, with an eye toward designing systems that will support such searches. Skim sections 1-3, so that you can focus your attention on sections 4 and 5 (pages 744-752).

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, September 29

#13: Assessment of information quality and value

Due: Description of population and setting of interest for System/Service Proposal

These two studies are examining very similar behaviors, so we'll focus our attention on the differences between them. Pay attention to the research questions asked, who is included in the study sample, what data were collected, and what conclusions were drawn.

Rieh, S.Y. (2002). Judgment of information quality and cognitive authority in the Web. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 53(2), 145-161. [UNC libraries]

Tombros, A., Ruthven, I., & Jose, J.M. (2005). How users assess web pages for information seeking. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 56(4), 327-344. [UNC libraries]

Additional readings of interest

Thursday, October 1

#14: Relevance judgments

Due: Preliminary literature search plan for System/Service Proposal

Saracevic, T. (2007). Relevance: A review of the literature and a framework for thinking on the notion in information science. Part II: Nature and manifestations of relevance, [and] Part III: Behavior and effects of relevance. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 58(13), 1915-1933, 2126-2144. [UNC libraries: Part II, Part III]

Part I of this series is his 1975 article on the topic of relevance. In this update, he provides a really-compact overview of a huge amount of the literature on relevance. Read these two parts for the primary concepts, not necessarily for the nuanced details.

Xie, I., & Benoit, E., III. (2013). Search result list evaluation versus document evaluation: Similarities and differences. Journal of Documentation, 69(1), 49-80. [UNC libraries]

Making a relevance judgment based on the snippet in a results list is different than making a relevance judgment based on the full document. Xie and Benoit looked closely at these two processes, to identify both the similarities and differences. Lightly skim the introduction and literature review, to see the similarities with the Saracevic articles (and also identify any new ideas); focus your reading on their results and discussion (pages 60-76).

Additional readings of interest

Information Use

Tuesday, October 6

#15: Ways of using information / re-finding and re-use

Each of the studies below examined or proposed a different type/aspect of information use. I've tried to briefly state the type of information use with each citation. To support our class discussion today, select ONE of these articles and read it before coming to class.

If the study examined additional information behaviors (e.g., information seeking), skim those sections; focus on the sections discussing USE of the information.

1. Reading e-books: ChanLin, L.-J. (2013). Reading strategy and the need of e-book features. Electronic Library, 31(3), 329-344. [UNC libraries]

2. Using information from PubMed to help solve neuroscience problems: Mirel, B., Tonks, J.S., Song, J., Meng, F., Xuan, W., & Ameziane, R. (2013). Studying PubMed usages in the field for complex problem solving: Implications for tool design. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 64(5), 874-892. [UNC libraries]

3. Discussing found information with a physician or using it to improve one's health: Warner, D., & Procaccino, J.D. (2004). Toward wellness: Women seeking health information. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 55(8), 709-730. [UNC libraries]

4. Eight different ways that information is used within organizational contexts: Choo, C.W., Bergeron, P., Detlor, B., & Heaton, L. (2008). Information culture and information use: An exploratory study of three organizations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 59(5), 792-804. [UNC libraries]

5. Packaging and sharing information with stakeholders: Mutshewa, A. (2010). The use of information by environmental planners: A qualitative study using Grounded Theory methodology. Information Processing & Management, 46(2), 212-232. [UNC libraries]

6. Use of images for the information they provide or as illustrations: McCay-Pett, L., & Toms, E. (2009). Image use within the work task model: Images as information and illustration. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 60(12), 2416-2429. [UNC libraries]

7. Use of images by four different groups of users: Beaudoin, J.E. (2014). A framework of image use among archaeologists, architects, art historians and artists. Journal of Documentation, 70(1), 119-147. [UNC libraries]

8. Selection and use of particular pieces of information in house listings: Savolainen, R. (2009). Interpreting informational cues: An explorative study on information use among prospective homebuyers. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 60(11), 2244-2254. [UNC libraries]

Re-finding and re-use

EVERYONE read both of these:

Capra, R., & Pérez-Quiñones, M.A. (2005). Using Web search engines to find and refind information. IEEE Computer, 38(10), 36-42. [UNC libraries]

Finding and refinding present different user challenges. Synthesizing results from one of their studies with related work, the authors propose a search engine use model based on prior task frequency and familiarity.

Jones, W., Bruce, H., & Dumais, S. (2001). Keeping found things found on the Web. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 119-126. [UNC libraries]

This is one of the earliest serious studies of re-finding and re-use, based on observation of the methods people use to manage web information for re-use.

Additional readings of interest: Finding and re-finding

Thursday, October 8

#16: Information poverty and information overload

Chatman, E.A. (1996). The impoverished life-world of outsiders. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 47(3), 193-206. [UNC libraries]

Chatman draws on results from four previous studies to identify four concepts that serve as a basis for defining information poverty: risk-taking, secrecy, deception, and situational relevance.

Bawden, D., & Robinson, L. (2009). The dark side of information: Overload, anxiety and other paradoxes and pathologies. Journal of Information Science, 35(2), 180-191. [UNC libraries]

This paper provides an overview of the issues associated with the quantity and diversity of information now available. Read the entire paper, but focus particular attention on sections 3 and 4 (in case you're feeling overloaded).

Additional readings of interest: Information poverty and overload

Thursday, October 15

Fall Break! No class!

Unit 5: The Impact of Context on Information Seeking and Use

Tuesday, October 20

#18: Domain, disciplinary, and organizational context

Today will be a review or sorts. We will begin with an overview of topics we have covered in the course so far and then move into a discussion of how context affects information behavior to develop a better sense of what we should be looking for in our research.

There are no readings for this session. We will consider the following studies to contextualize our discussion in small groups.

1. Rieh, S.Y. (2004). On the Web at home: Information seeking and web searching in the home environment. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 55(8), 743-753. [UNC libraries]

2. Ellis, D., Cox, D., & Hall, K. (1993). A comparison of the information seeking patterns of researchers in the physical and social sciences. Journal of Documentation, 49(4), 356-369. [SILS Library][IN SAKAI]

3. Baldwin, N.S., & Rice, R.E. (1997). Information-seeking behavior of securities analysts: Individual and institutional influences, information sources and channels, and outcomes. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48(8), 674-693. [UNC libraries]

4. Sahu, H.K., & Singh, S.N. (2013). Information seeking behaviour of astronomy/astrophysics scientists. Aslib Proceedings, 65(2), 109-142. [UNC libraries]

5. Costello, K. L., & Murillo, A. P. (2014). “I want your kidney!” Information seeking, sharing, and disclosure when soliciting a kidney donor online. Patient Education and Counseling, 94(3), 423–426. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2013.11.009

6. Potnis, D. D. (2015). Beyond Access to Information: Understanding the Use of Information by Poor Female Mobile Users in Rural India. The Information Society, 31(1), 83–93. http://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2014.976687

7. Veinot, T.C. (2013). Regional HIV/AIDS information environments and information acquisition success. The Information Society, 29(2), 88-112. [UNC libraries]

Thursday, October 22

#19: Domain, disciplinary, and organizational context, continued

Cool, C. (2001). The concept of situation in information science. Annual Review of Information Science & Technology, 35, 5-42*.* [SILS Library Reference - Z699.A1 A65 v.35][IN SAKAI]

ARIST chapters are comprehensive literature reviews in a particular area. Of interest to us in this chapter is the section on "Situation, context, and interaction with information," pages 7-9. It will introduce you to a bit of the terminology in this area. The chapter, as a whole, is organized around several theoretical perspectives on situation: the problematic situation, social interaction theory, situated action, situation awareness, the person-in-situation model, and situation as information environment.

Sonnenwald, D.H. (1999). Perspectives of human information behaviour: Contexts, situations, social networks and information horizons. In Exploring the Contexts of Information Behaviour: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Research in Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts (August 13-15, 1998, Sheffield, UK). Taylor Graham, 176-190. [IN SAKAI]

This paper provides some foundational definitions. Read the sections on context and situations, p178-180.

Taylor, R.S. (1991). Information use environments. Progress in Communication Sciences, 10, 217-255. [Davis Library - P87 .P74 v10][IN SAKAI]

This is a classic reading that examines the effects of context on information behaviors. Read Section II (p221-233). Then read about one of the three information use environments studied (engineers, legislators, or physicians), based on the following schedule: last name beginning with A-D, engineers; last name beginning with G-K, legislators; last name beginning with M-S, physicians.

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, October 27

#20: Everyday life information seeking

Due: Preliminary client/population description for System/Service Proposal

Savolainen, R. (1995). Everyday life information seeking: Approaching information seeking in the context of "way of life". Library & Information Science Research, 17(3), 259-294. [UNC libraries]

This is the seminal article on everyday life information seeking, which is now an important area of information behavior research. One question for us is which types of everyday life information needs are we likely to be able to address via our current information institutions or systems. See the "additional readings" for Savolainen's book on this research area, and the Givens (2002) paper on that list for an investigation of how much students' academic and everyday information needs overlap.

Fisher, K.E., & Naumer, C.M. (2006). Information grounds: Theoretical basis and empirical findings on information flow in social settings. In Spink, A., & Cole, C. (eds.), New Directions in Human Information Behavior. Springer, 93-111. [UNC libraries]

Fisher and her students have been developing the concept of an information ground. This chapter reviews several of her studies that address the definition of this concept. For an example of a single well-developed study of information grounds, see the JASIST (2004) article on the "additional readings" list.

McKenzie, P.J. (2003). A model of information practices in accounts of everyday-life information seeking. Journal of Documentation, 59(1), 19-40. [UNC libraries]

The model proposed by McKenzie adds a social dimension to our thinking about everyday life information seeking behaviors.

Additional readings of interest

Thursday, October 29

#21: Incidental information acquisition; Browsing and serendipity

Bawden, D. (2011). Encountering on the road to Serendip? Browsing in new information environments. In Foster, A., & Rafferty, P. (eds.), Innovations in Information Retrieval: Perspectives for Theory and Practice. London: Facet Publishing, 1-22. [SILS Library - Z699 .I56 2011][IN SAKAI]

Bawden argues that browsing behaviors pre-Web may have different characteristics that browsing on the Web. He provides an extensive review of the relevant literature.

Bates, M.J. (1989). The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface. Online Review, 13(5), 407-424. [IN SAKAI]

Skim quickly, to get her idea of berrypicking as a metaphor for information seeking. Also, pay special attention to the techniques listed on page 412; you're expected to incorporate all of them in your searching for Assignment 3.

Bates, M.J. (2007). What is browsing -- really? A model drawing from behavioural science research. Information Research, 12(4), Paper 330. [http://informationr.net/ir/12-4/paper330.html]

Bates take a very fine-grained look at browsing behaviors and finds a series of four steps: "1) glimpsing a field of vision, 2) selecting or sampling a physical or informational object within the field of vision, 3) examining the object, 4) acquiring the object (conceptually and/or physically) or abandoning it."

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, November 3

#22: Collaborative search and delegated or imposed queries

Due: Preliminary proposal description for System/Service Proposal

Talja, S., & Hansen, P. (2006). Information sharing. In Spink, A., & Cole, C. (eds.), New Directions in Human Information Behavior, Vol. 8. Springer, 113-134. [UNC libraries]

After providing some context and definitions, Talja and Hansen review the research that has been conducted on collaborative information behaviors/practices, then conclude with a discussion of CIB as a social practice. Skim sections 1 and 2, then focus your reading on section 3.

Evans, B.M., & Chi, E.H. (2010). An elaborated model of social search. Information Processing & Management, 46(6), 656-678. [UNC libraries]

Based on two surveys of Mechanical Turkers, the authors propose a social model of user activities before, during, and after a search episode. Skim the first 3 sections; read section 4 closely enough so that you understand Figure 2.

Gross, M. (1995). The imposed query. RQ, 35(2), 236-243. [IN SAKAI]

This is Gross's seminal work on the imposed query, defined as "the acquisition of information in service to or on behalf of someone else" (p.236). If you have time, also skim through one of the articles on health information seeking in the "additional readings" list.

Shah, C., Capra, R., Hansen, P. (2014). Collaborative information seeking [Guest editor's introduction]. IEEE Computer 47(3). http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/co/2014/03/mco2014030022.pdf

This is just for reference in case you want to look at it during class.

Additional readings of interest

Unit 6: Intermediation and Dis-intermediation in Information-Seeking

Thursday, November 5

#23: Human intermediaries: Reference and help desk services

Crabtree, A., O'Neill, J., Tolmie, P., Castellani, S., Colombino, T., & Grasso, A. (2006). The practical indispensability of articulation work to immediate and remote help-giving. CSCW '06: Proceedings of the 2006 Concference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 219-228. [UNC libraries]

This paper argues that the design of remote help-giving systems should be grounded in the methodical ways in which help-givers and help-seekers coordinate their problem solving activities. They call this coordination process, "articulation work".

Agosto, D.E., Rozaklis, L., MacDonald, C., & Abels, E.G. (2011). A model of the reference and information service process: An educators' perspective. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 50(3), 235-244. [UNC libraries]

Based on focus groups and town hall meetings, six trends in reference services were identified. Of particular interest to us for today's discussion are the results related to reference services as a collaborative process (p239), but do make sure you understand the other trends, too.

Shah, C., & Kitzie, V. (2012). Social Q&A and virtual reference -- Comparing apples and oranges with the help of experts and users. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 63(10), 2020-2036. [UNC libraries]

Both experts and users were interviewed about their experiences with asking questions online. In particular, they were asked to evaluate their experiences with both social Q&A site and virtual reference services, in relation to relevance, quality, and satisfaction. This reading foreshadows an upcoming discussion.

Ellis, D., Wilson, T.D., Ford, N., Foster, A., Lam, H.M., Burton, R., & Spink, A. (2002). Information seeking and mediated searching. Part 5. User-intermediary interaction. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 53(11), 883-893. [UNC libraries]

Twenty-five interactions between information seekers and intermediaries were examined. The interaction had a positive impact on the search process. Specifically, the intermediary helped the users to identify their search terms more clearly and focus on the references obtained. Focus your reading on the study itself; just skim the literature review.

Additional readings of interest

Tuesday, November 10

#24: Information retrieval systems as intermediaries

Marchionini, G., & White, R. (2007). Find what you need, understand what you find. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 23(3), 205-238. [UNC libraries]

Using Marchionini's model of the information seeking process as a framework, this article reviews many aspects of today's IR systems that are intended to help searchers succeed.

White, R.W. (2009). Designing information-seeking support systems. In Information Seeking Support Systems: An Invitational Workshop (June 26-27, 2008, Chapel Hill, NC), 55-58. http://ils.unc.edu/ISSS/ISSS_final_report.pdf.

White's very brief paper outlines some of the key challenges yet to be addressed in designing information-seeking support systems. Consider which of these have been addressed (five years later) and which remain as opportunities for design and development.

Parser, E. (2011). Beware online "filter bubbles". TED Talk. http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html.

Parser warns about the dark side of algorithmic search personalization.

Additional readings of interest

Thursday, November 12

#25: Social intermediation: Recommender systems, social Q&A, etc.

In class: Form teams for In-Depth Analysis of an Example of Scholarly Communication

Eysenbach, G. (2007). From intermediation to disintermediation and apomediation: New models for consumers to access and assess the credibility of health information in the age of Web 2.0. In MEDINFO 2007 Proceedings. IOS Press, 162-166. [SILS Library - R858 .A2 M4157 2007][WILL ADD TO SAKAI]

Through the social process of disintermediation, traditional intermediaries are replaced by what Eysenbach calls apomediaries (online tools and peers that will guide information seekers to trustworthy information). While Eysenbach is focused on the medical domain, his views may apply equally well to other domains.

Shah, C., & Kitzie, V. (2012). Social Q&A and virtual reference -- Comparing apples and oranges with the help of experts and users. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 63(10), 2020-2036. [UNC libraries]

This study examined both social Q&A systems and libraries' virtual reference systems, from the perspectives of librarians and students in relation to the relevance, quality, and satisfication of interacting with each type of system. You read this article for last week, so you just need to refresh your memory of it.

Wakeling, S., Clough, P., Sen, B., & Connaway, L.S. (2012). "Readers who borrowed this also borrowed...": Recommender systems in UK libraries. Library Hi Tech, 30(1), 134-150. [UNC libraries]

The authors first review different models of recommender systems (content-based, collaborative filtering, and knowledge-based) and the report on a study comparing several existing recommender systems for libraries. For more on the technology of recommender systems, read the Schafer et al. (2007) chapter on the additional readings list.

Additional readings of interest

Scholarly Communication

Tuesday, November 17

#26: Scholarly work and the role of scholarly communication

Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. Atlantic Monthly, 176(1), 101-108. [Reprinted in interactions, 3(2), 35-46, March 1996]

This is the famous article in which Bush outlines his ideas for the Memex, a personal knowledge base to be used by scientists. His ideas about the way a scientist could record an "intricate web of trails" that reflect his/her thinking foreshadow the development of hypertext and, later, the Web. It is primarily of historic interest, but every well-educated ILS professional should have read it. So take a look. If you've read it before, focus your attention on sections 5-6 (p41-44).

Bornmann, L.,&Marx, W. (2012). The Anna Karenina principle: A way of thinking about success in science. Journal of American Society for Information Science&Technology, 63(10), 2037-2051. [UNC libraries]

This article focuses on success in science in terms of peer review, citations, and new scientific discoveries. The authors argue that the scientific enterprise can be successful only if several key prerequisites for the allocation of resources (e.g., journal space, funds, reception, and recognition) are fulfilled. Overall, this article provides a higher-level view of the scientific/research enterprise.

I will discuss the following articles, but you do not have to read them unless you want more depth on this topic:

Palmer, C.L. (2005). Scholarly work and the shaping of digital access. Journal of American Society for Information Science&Technology, 56(11), 1140-1153. [UNC libraries]

Palmer analyzes scholarly work in terms of two general modes of information access, one used primarily by scientists and one used primarily by humanities scholars. Once useful resources are discovered, the scholar assembles them into thematic research collections and uses those collections to create new knowledge. It would be worthwhile for you to read this entire article, but if you're short on time, start on page 1143, with the section on "Digital Access by Scholars".

Evans, J.A. (2008, July 18). Electronic publication and the narrowing of science and scholarship. Science, 321(5887), 395-399. [UNC libraries]

As scientists have become more heavily dependent on online journals, there is evidence that they are citing fewer journals and articles, and that more of those citations were to fewer journals and articles (narrowing their field of vision).

Additional readings of interest

Thursday, November 19

WORK DAY

You will have today off to work on your final assignment planning with your group.

Tuesday, November 24

#27: Metrics of scholarly productivity; The invisible college: discovery and representation

Due: List of articles for In-Depth Analysis of an Example of Scholarly Communication

Read the first two articles and each group will read one of the last five listed for today, based on your method for the final project.

Smith, L.C. (1981). Citation analysis. Library Trends, 30(1), 83-106. [WILL ADD TO SAKAI]

Though this article is older, it is not really outdated as a clear introduction to the use of citation data for both assessing scholarly productivity and for mapping the relationships among scholars.

Chang, Y.-W. (2013). The influence of Taylor's paper, Question-Negotiation and Information-Seeking in Libraries. Information Processing&Management, 49(5), 983-994. [UNC libraries]

Chang conducted a bibliometric analysis of a paper with which you're vey familiar by now: Taylor's 1968 paper. Your completion of Assignment 4 will be similar to Chang's work, though on a much smaller scale.

Priem, J., & Costello, K. L. (2010). How and why scholars cite on Twitter. In Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 2010 (Vol. 47, pp. 1–4). Pittsburgh, PA. http://doi.org/10.1002/meet.14504701201

Priem and Costello conducted a study of scholars citation practices on Twitter. They found that though Twitter citations are different from traditional citations, interviews suggested that scholars see Twitter as a legitimate conduit of scholarly impact.

Priem, J.,&Hemminger, B.M. (2010). Scientometrics 2.0: Toward new metrics of scholarly impact on the social Web. First Monday, 15(7). http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2874/2570.

The evaluation of scholarly productivity with citation (i.e., bibliometric) data is often called scientometrics. In this paper, the authors describe and discuss several alternative metrics (based on social bookmarking or microblogging) that could provide a more complete picture of a scholar's impact.

Priem, J. (2013). Scholarship: Beyond the paper. Nature, 495(7442), 437-440. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v495/n7442/full/495437a.html.

Priem argues that the journal and article are being superseded by algorithms that filter, rate and disseminate scholarship as it happens.

Goodrum, A.A., McCain, K.W., Lawrence, S.,&Giles, C.L. (2001). Scholarly publishing in the internet age: A citation analysis of computer science literature. Information Processing&Management, 37(5), 661-675. [UNC libraries]

Data on citations to the computer science literature were collected through CiteSeer and through Web of Science (then, SCISEARCH). The goal was to develop an overall description of the computer science literature. For this article, skim section 1, focus a bit on the methods they used (section 2) and their findings (section 3) and skim section 4.

White, H.D. (2003). Pathfinder networks and author cocitation analysis: A remapping of paradigmatic information scientists. Journal of the American Society for Information Science&Technology, 54(5), 423-434. [UNC libraries]

Updates his earlier work with Kate McCain, visualizing information science. He briefly reviews the methods used in the previous work, but focuses on introducing the advantages of a new approach to cocitation analysis: Pathfinder networks. Focus your reading on two sections: "ACA Mapping" and "PFNETs and Their Advantages." Also study the figures, and skim the text around them in enough depth to get a basic understanding of what the figures mean.

Haythornthwaite, C. (1996). Social network analysis: An approach and technique for the study of information exchange. Library&Information Science Research, 18, 323-342. [UNC libraries]

This is a fairly brief tutorial on the basic concepts and methods of social network analysis, with a discussion of how they can be used to study the exchange of information. Be sure you understand all the basic concepts described on pages 323-331; then you can skim lightly to page 338, then focus on the last section (pages 338-340).

Additional readings of interest: metrics and future

Thursday, November 26

NO CLASS: Thanksgiving

Tuesday, December 1

#28: Diffusion theory, information, the future

Rogers, E. (1995). Diffusion of Innovations. 4th ed. New York: Free Press. [SILS Library Reserves - HM101 .R57 1995][WILL ADD TO SAKAI]: a copy of relevant sections of Chapter 1 and Chapter 10 in Sakai Resources

We'll read only a portion of the first chapter (page 5, beginning with the section on "What is diffusion?" through page 31, before the "hybrid corn" example; skip the "scurvy" boxed example if you need to limit your time on this). This is an overview chapter and introduces most of the basic concepts of diffusion theory. Also examine Figure 5-1 on page 163; it provides an overview of the stages of the innovation decision process. If you have any extra time at all, also read pages 389-400, "The innovation process in organizations".

Additional readings of interest

Thursday, December 3

READING DAY

Tuesday, December 8

READING DAY

Thursday, December 10

SCHEDULED EXAM DAY

Final assignment due at NOON.