Information Science – Information Behaviour

Articles from this series

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1. Information science - Introduction
2. Information science – Uniqueness and essential questions
3. Information science – Philosophical approaches
4. Information science – Paradigms
5. Information science – Epistemologies
6. Information science – What is information?
7. Information science - Terminology (Knowledge, Document)
8. Information science - Terminology (Collections, Databases, Relevance)
9. Information science – Domain
10. Information science – Organisations of information
11. Information science - Information systems
12. Information science – Informetrics
13. Information science – Application of informetrics

Main source

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Introduction to Information Science - DAVID BAWDEN and LYN ROBINSON

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Information behaviour

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We all know that every human being is different due to biological difference. The differences are not only attributes, skills and weaknesses (and the rest I didn’t mention too:D), but also information behaviour. Information behaviour means, finding, processing, saving, transmitting, using and making connections in between the absorbed information.

There is no consensus whatsoever about what should be considered part of information behaviour, or how does it affect our moods, or future actions. That will never happen until neuroscience reaches that milestone, which is understanding of human brain. But this statement is true for most of the “scientific” aspects of Information science and until then we are left with some kind of philosophical, social approach. Information behaviour happens when human being realizes some kind of “information uncertainty”. In other words human being realizes that he doesn’t know something he should/want to know. It also can be understood as “the need to remove entropy”. There are also theories that “information need” doesn’t exist, or rather that it is manifested trough “different needs”. For example – “Is there any pizza being sold around?” would not be “information need”, but rather “need for food, thus need to know where it can be bought. From my humble point of view this is bullshit. To me it’s only another argument that “information need” exists. It’s only predictable that the need will not be there for the sake of the need. It will always be connected to a logical reason why any given person wants to know something.

I think we all will agree on the fact, that every single human being does work and seek information every single day. It is irrelevant what kind of information it is or for what purpose they seek it. It doesn’t matter whether we seek it from other humans, from art, consumables or from different animals. We are addicted to information, we need it for living and for healthy state of mind, because the need to remove entropy is inborn for all of us. What differs is WHICH kind of entropy we ought to remove. That will never change.

Theories and models

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The models and theories in Information science are not predictive mathematical structures, nor architectural/chemical models designed to be visual representations. Those models are rather qualitative description, explanations. They are basic conceptual diagrams. As I said in the paragrapgh above, we would need better understanding of our brains in order to study those aspects of Information science in a more mathematical way. The models are descriptive, processing, cognitive and complex. Those models will be explained in the next article.

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