Information Behavior

摘要

Wilson (2000, p. 49) defined information behavior as "the totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active and passive information seeking and information use." Seen this way, information behavior includes purposive information seeking; serendipitous encountering of information; and the giving, sharing, and use of information. Pettigrew, Fidel, and Bruce (2001) described recent debates over the scope and terminology of this topic, including difficulties with the label "information behavior"; they concluded that information behavior was the most appropriate term for this area of research. This chapter reviews recent literature on information behavior, covering publications appearing during the four-year period 2001 to 2004. The year 2001 has been chosen as the starting point because the most recent ARIST chapters relevant to information behavior (see the citations in the next section) were published in 2001 and 2002, and their bibliographies cover works from 2001 and earlier. In addition, I published a comprehensive overview of the information behavior literature that includes items published through late 2001.