Information Seeking in Electronic Environments

In the computer age, it is essential for individuals to develop skills and strategies for manipulating, storing, and retrieving electronic information. This book considers how electronic technologies have changed these skills and strategies and augmented the fundamental human activity of information seeking. Writing from the point of view of the user rather than the computer, the author makes a case for creating new interface designs that allow information seekers to choose what strategy to apply according to their immediate needs. Such systems may be designed by providing information seekers with alternative interface mechanisms for displaying and manipulating multiple levels of representation for information objects. This book is multidisciplinary in approach and aims to bridge the perspectives of information science, computer science and education. It will be essential reading for researchers and graduate students in these fields.

Significant amounts of our time and energy are devoted to creating, managing, and avoiding information. Computers and telecommunications technology have extended our regard for information and are driving changes in how we learn, work, and play. One result of these developments is that skills and strategies for storing and retrieving information have become more essential and more pervasive in our culture. This book considers how electronic technologies have changed these skills and strategies and augmented the fundamental human activity of information seeking. The author makes a case for creating new interface designs that allow the information seeker to choose what strategy to apply according to their immediate needs. Such systems may be designed by providing information seekers with alternative interface mechanisms for displaying and manipulating multiple levels of representation for information objects. Information Seeking in Electronic Environments is essential reading for researchers and graduate students in information science, human-computer interaction, and education, as well as for designers of information retrieval systems and interfaces for digital libraries and archives.

Information and information seeking; 2. Information seekers and electronic environments; 3. Information-seeking perspective and framework; 4. Foundations for personal information infrastructures: 5. Information-seeking knowledge, skills, and attitudes; 6. Analytical search strategies; 7. Browsing strategies; 8. Designing support for Browsing: 9. A research and development perspective; 10. The continuing evolution of information seeking; 11. Future directions and conclusion.

Information Seeking in Electronic Environments describes how the strategies we use to locate information have begun to change as a result of computers and telecommunications technology. Accessible to students and to the perspicacious citizen who wishes to understand how technology has begun to influence life in the information society.