Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user's perspective

• Published in: Journal of the American Society for Information Science Vol. 42; no. 5; pp. 361 - 371
• Main Author: Kuhlthau, Carol C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, D.C Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 01.06.1991; John Wiley & Sons; American Documentation Institute; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: Ability Grouping; Academic Libraries; Affective Objectives; Cognitive aspects; Cognitive Objectives; Correlation; Documentation; Exact sciences and technology; Higher Education; Hypotheses; Information and communication sciences; Information processing and retrieval; Information retrieval; Information retrieval systems. Information and document management system; Information retrieval. Man machine relationship; Information science. Documentation; Information Seeking; Information storage and retrieval; Information systems; Information work; Knowledge; Learning Resources Centers; Library and information science; Longitudinal Studies; Public Libraries; Research Needs; School Libraries; Science; Sciences and techniques of general use; Search process; Search Strategies; Searching; Secondary Education; Secondary schools; Skills; Strategies; Subject indexing; Technical services; Theory; User behaviour; User needs; User Needs (Information); New York; United States > US; Case study; Information science; User; Theory; Psychology; Information retrieval; Cognition; Process; Librarianship; User behavior; Research and development; User need
• ISSN: 0002-8231; 1097-4571
• DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199106)42:5<361::AID-ASI6>3.0.CO;2-#

The article discusses the users' perspective of information seeking. A model of the information search process is presented derived from a series of five studies investigating common experiences of users in information seeking situations. The cognitive and affective aspects of the process of information seeking suggest a gap between the users' natural process of information use and the information system and intermediaries' traditional patterns of information provision. © 1991 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.