University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
School of Information and Library Science

INLS 500, Human Information Interactions, Fall 2015

Weekly Schedule

Other class pages: Syllabus / Assignments / Additional Readings / Sakai site

Please note: The annotations provided below many of these articles are a combination of insights from Barbara Wildemuth, other SILS faculty, and me. Please be sure to read through them carefully, as they often contain additional instructions related to the reading.

BASIC CONCEPTS

1, Wednesday, August 19: Trends in human information interaction 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.
  • 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.
• Additional readings of interest

2, Monday, August 24: Theoretical perspectives and basic concepts

• 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.
• 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

• Sign up for Assignment 2, Evidence Summary

3, Wednesday, August 26: Cognitive approaches to information behaviors

• 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, p263-274.
  • 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.)
• 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.
• Additional readings of interest

4, Monday, August 31: 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

5, Wednesday, September 2: 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, 77-93. [Chapter in Sakai Resources; book on reserve in SILS Library - ZA3075 .L665 2012]
  • 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 Resources]
  • 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

6, Wednesday, September 9: 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 Resources]
  • 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. [Online]
  • 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. [In Sakai Resources]
  • 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

7, Monday, September 14: Studying/analyzing information needs

• 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. You can see more details on the results at http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33456.
• One additional study that analyzes the information needs of a particular group, other than college/graduate students or scholars. Identify a study from the optional reading list or through searching in the literature.
• Evidence summary report, ():
• Additional readings of interest

INFORMATION SEEKING

8, Wednesday, September 16: 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
  

9, Monday, September 21: Interactive information retrieval as part of the information seeking process

• 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).
• Evidence summary, ():
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

10, Wednesday, September 23: Assessment of information quality/value

• 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]
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• Assignment 3, System/Service Proposal: Target Audience Description is due

11, Monday, September 28: Relevance judgments

• 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).
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• Assignment 1, Diary and Analysis of an Information Seeking Event: Brief description is due

INFORMATION USE

12, Wednesday, September 30: Ways of using information

• 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 TWO of these articles and read them 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.
• Reading e-books: ChanLin, L.-J. (2013). Reading strategy and the need of e-book features. Electronic Library, 31(3), 329-344. [UNC libraries]
• 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]
• 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]
• 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]
• 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]
• 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]
• 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]
• 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]
• Additional readings of interest

13, Monday, October 5: Re-using and re-finding information; Information poverty and information overload

• 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.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• 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).
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• Assignment 3, System/Service Proposal: Preliminary plan for literature searching due

THE IMPACT OF CONTEXT ON INFORMATION SEEKING AND USE

14, Wednesday, October 7: Domain, disciplinary, and organizational context

• 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, or Sakai Resources]
  • 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. [Sakai Resources]
  • 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, or Sakai Resources]
  • 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.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

15, Wednesday, October 14: Domain, disciplinary, and organizational context, continued

• 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 or Sakai Resources]
  • You will recall that we already looked briefly at the information seeking strategies Ellis identified; now you'll get a chance to look at them more closely. In this classic study, Ellis and his colleagues examined the effects of disciplinary context on scholars' information behaviors. They compared physicists, chemists, and social scientists.
• 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]
  • This is an example of looking at an everyday life information seeking context, and its characteristics and effects. Focus special attention on the literature review, and the results for research questions 1 and 2.
• Evidence summary,():
• Additional readings of interest

16, Monday, October 19: Everyday life information seeking

• 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.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

17, Wednesday, October 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; copy of this chapter in Sakai Resources]
  • 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 berrypicing techniques for the online search interface. Online Review, 13(5), 407-424. [Sakai Resources]
  • 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."
• Evidence summary report, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• Assignment 1, Diary and Analysis of an Information Seeking Event, is due

18, Monday, October 26: Collaborative search and delegated/imposed queries

• 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. [UNC libraries or Sakai Resources]
  • 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.
• Evidence summary report, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• Assignment 3, System/Service Proposal: Outline of knowledge about the selected population is due

INTERMEDIATION AND DIS-INTERMEDIATION IN INFORMATION SEEKING

19, Wednesday, October 28: 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.
• 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.
• 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 our discussion on April 3, so keep it in your mind as you prepare for that class session, also.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

20, Monday, November 2: 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.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• Assignment 3, System/Service Proposal: Brief description of proposed system/service is due

21, Wednesday, November 4: Social intermediation: Recommender systems, social Q&A, etc.

• 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 or in Sakai Resources]
  • 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.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

22, Wednesday, November 11: Scholarly work and the role of scholarly communication

• 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).
• 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.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• Form teams for Assignment 4, In-Depth Analysis of an Example of Scholarly Communication

23, Monday, November 16: Metrics of scholarly productivity

• Smith, L.C. (1981). Citation analysis. Library Trends, 30(1), 83-106. [Sakai Resources]
  • 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., & 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.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

24, Wednesday, November 18: The future of scholarly communication

• 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.
• Monastersky, R. (2013). The library reboot. Nature, 495(7442), 430-432. http://www.nature.com/news/publishing-frontiers-the-library-reboot-1.12664.
  • Monastersky suggests that libraries begin to take on a new role, as repositories for open data (not just documents). (Both the Priem and the Monastersky articles are related to a feature section in this article of Nature, focusing on the future of scholarly publishing. Be sure to check out others in the issue, also.)
• Procter, R., Voss, A., & Asgari-Targhi, M. (2013). Fostering the human infrastructure of e-research. Information, Communication & Society, 16(10), 1668-1691. [UNC libraries]
  • While the advantages of e-infrastructure are relatively obvious, users often find e-infrastructure adoption to be complex and challenging. These views are examined here, and several interventions are proposed for overcoming the challenges.
• Hogan, N.M., & Sweeney, K.J. (2013). Social networking and scientific communication: A paradoxical return to Mertonian roots? [Opinion paper]. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 64(3), 644-646. [UNC libraries]
  • Hogan and Sweeney wonder whether the use of social media by scientists help them to uphold their deep-seated roots in open communication, or risk compromising the integrity of science by bypassing traditional gatekeepers. We'll discuss this question during class.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

• Assignment 4, In-Depth Analysis of an Example of Scholarly Communication: List of selected articles due

25, Monday, November 23: The invisible college: discovery and representation; Diffusion theory and how it applies to the diffusion of information and information technologies

• 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).
• Rogers, E. (1995). Diffusion of Innovations. 4th ed. New York: Free Press. [SILS Library Reserves - HM101 .R57 1995; 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

• Assignment 3, System/Service Proposal is due

26, Thursday, November 30: Scholarly publishing as an industry: Traditional and open access models; Intellectual property issues

• Ware, M., & Mabe, M. (2009). The STM Report: An Overview of Scientific and Scholarly Journal Publishing. International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers. www.stm-assoc.org/2009_10_13_MWC_STM_Report.pdf.
  • Section 4 (p45-57) provides a great summary of open access issues. Also read section 2.18 (p39-40) for a brief introduction to some of the copyright issues involved in scholarly publishing.
• Rowlands, I., Nicholas, D., & Huntington, P. (2004, Mar. 18). Scholarly Communication in the Digital Environment: What Do Authors Want? Findings of an International Survey of Author Opinion: Project Report. Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER), Department of Information Science, City University (London). http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uczciro/ciber-pa-report.pdf.
  • This report summarizes the key findings from a survey of nearly 4000 senior researchers from 97 countries. It asks them about their opinions of the current journal publication system. Read the executive summary (p1-2), lightly skim Part A (methods, p5-9), and read the rest of the report closely enough so that you have a good sense of the survey findings in Parts B and C.
• Harnad, S., Brody, T., Vallieres, F., Carr, L., Hitchcock, S., Gingras, Y., Oppenheim, C., Hajjem, C., & Hilf, E.R. (2008). The access/impact problem and the green and gold roads to open access: An update. Serials Review, 34(1), 36-40. [UNC libraries]
  • The "golden" road and the "green" road to open access publishing are described. The authors see self-archiving as the best way forward to improve access to scholarly publications.
• Seadle, M. (2007). Copyright cultures. Library Hi Tech, 25(3), 430-435. [UNC libraries]
• Seadle identifies and discusses three different copyright cultures: for authors who require long-term protection for financial gain from their works; for authors who require short-term protection for financial gain from their works; and for authors whose value depends on access instead of protection.
• Evidence summary, ():
• Additional readings of interest

THE CURRENT FUTURE OF INFORMATION

27, Wednesday, December 2: A new era of information? Wrap-up. Evaluations

• Levy, D.M. (2005). To grow in wisdom: Vannevar Bush, information overload, and the life of leisure. Proceedings of the 5th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 281-286. [UNC libraries]
  • Bush's Memex was intended to address the problem of information overload. With the increasing pace of scholarly publication, this problem has only gottten worse. Levy argues that, in addition to developing better information management tools, we also need to create space and time for thinking and reflection. In this version of this paper, he comments on the role of digital libraries; in his journal article on the same theme, he goes into more depth on other facets of his argument. (See the additional readings list for that citation.)
• Rangaswami, J.P. (2012). Information is food. TED Talk. http://www.ted.com/talks/jp_rangaswami_information_is_food.html.
  • Rangaswami discusses the production, preparation, and consumption of information as if those processes were parallel to the production, preparation, and consumption of food. Should information professionals strive to be the equivalent of nutritionists?
• Additional readings of interest
• Course evaluations

FINAL EXAM

Saturday, December 5, 4:00pm: Assignment 4, In-Depth Analysis of an Example of Scholarly Communication is due

---

This INLS 500 website, UNC-CH, 2014, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, and benefitted from input received from Barbara Wildemuth, Deborah Barreau, Laura Sheble, Earl Bailey, Ruth Palmquist, and Kaitlin Costello. Address all comments and questions to Kathy Brennan at kbrennan@unc.edu. This page was last modified on August 18, 2015, by Kathy Brennan.