On the Notion of "An Information Need"

‘Information need’ is a notion in IR that is ubiquitous, important, and intuitively clear. So far, surprisingly, the term seems to have defied formal definition. Of course, IR can continue to prosper without a formalization of ‘information need’. Yet when a field gets more mature there comes a time that frequently used notions should be formalized to make them susceptible of scrutiny. For IR such formalization should (1) be independent of a particular query language or document model, (2) allow that users formulate a need for information that may be unavailable or even nonexistent, and (3) allow that users try to circumscribe the very information they do not possess. To this end, the paper uses lattice theory to define a ‘formal information need’, which, we argue, coincides with the intuitive notion precisely when a user’s need for information can actually be filled.