This research investigates what information German Fairtrade coffee consumers search for during pre-purchase information seeking and to what extent information is retrieved. Furthermore, the sequence of the information search as well as the degree of cognitive involvement is highlighted. The role of labeling, the importance of additional ethical information and its quality in terms of concreten...

Document triage is the critical point in the information seeking process when the user first decides the relevance of a document to their information need. This complex process is not yet well understood, and subsequently we have undertaken a comparison of this task in both electronic and paper media. The results reveal that in each medium human judgement is influenced by different factors, and...

Collaborative querying seeks to help users formulate queries by sharing expert knowledge or other users’ search experiences. This paper reports evaluation results for a collaborative querying environment. Our results show that compared with traditional information retrieval environments, collaborative querying can lead to faster information seeking when users perform unspecified tasks.

Introduction. Uncertainty is understood as an important component of the information seeking process, but it has not been explored as a component of reference and information service. Method. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to examine the practitioner perspective of reference and information service for eight academic research librarians in the United States. Analysis. Data we...

, the author seeks to answer the following questions: What characterizes the queries that end users submit to online IR systems? What search features do people use? What features would enable them to improve on the retrievals they have in hand? What features are hardly ever used? What do end users do in response to the system's retrievals? Are end users satisfied with their online searches? Sum...

The introduction of new technologies and access to new information channels continue to change the way media studies researchers work and the questions they seek to answer. We investigate the current practices of media studies researchers and how these practices affect their research questions. Through the analysis of 27 interviews about the research practices of media studies researchers durin...

OBJECTIVES To determine information seeking behavior of physicians. DATA SOURCES Systematic review of 19 studies that described information seeking behavior in a number of different settings using differing methodologies. Analysis was limited to quantitative studies describing sources of information sought by physicians. RESULTS Investigators have used questionnaires, interviews and observa...