Assessing information needs: a case study of journalists

Nicholas, David; Martin, Helen

doi:10.1108/eb051447

Cited by 37 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…It is in these regards that it extends beyond a previous survey and classification of journalist's information needs by Nicholas and Martin (1997). The particular perspective taken here is one of process rather than of survey.…”

Section: Jd 592mentioning

confidence: 94%

Information seeking and use by newspaper journalists

Attfield

Dowell

2003

Journal of Documentation

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Reports an interview study into information seeking and use by journalists at a national British newspaper. Describes work activity in the context of a series of behaviour shaping constraints and cognitive and external resources. Describes the journalist's information seeking as motivated by originality checking (of the angle), developing a personal understanding, discovering/confirming potential content and also describes information gathering and managing multiple information spaces. Shows how these are motivated by context, facilitated by resources, and how they enrich the journalist's resource space. Also shows that journalistic work is uncertain as a function of an uncertain context and their continually evolving plans. These result in provisional and unstable relevance judgments, and, during later stages, the reinitiating of preparatory information seeking activities, including the relocation and review of previously read documents. At the end presents a model to summarise the findings.

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Section: Jd 592mentioning

confidence: 94%

Information seeking and use by newspaper journalists

Attfield

Dowell

2003

Journal of Documentation

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“…The principle demographic groups that have been described (along with relevant citations) are as follows: general public, children, and students (Hirsh, Jacobson, & Ignacio, 1997;Neuman, 1995); researchers and scholars (a series of research by Brown, 1999;Hemminger et al, 2007;Nicholas, Huntington, & Jamali, 2007); professionals such as lawyers and nurses (Gorman, 1995;Leckie, Pettigrew, & Sylvain, 1996;Nicholas & Martin, 1997;Urquhart & Crane, 1994); women, minorities, and the poor (Chatman & Pendleton, 1995;Liu, 1995;Meho & Haas, 2001;Shade, 1998). The focus of this study is the demographic group of researchers and scholars who are in the fields of science, medicine, and engineering.…”

Section: Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

National study of information seeking behavior of academic researchers in the United States

Niu

Hemminger

Lown

et al. 2010

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

116

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As new technologies and information delivery systems emerge, the way in which individuals search for information to support research, teaching, and creative activities is changing. To understand different aspects of researchers' information-seeking behavior, this article surveyed 2,063 academic researchers in natural science, engineering, and medical science from five research universities in the United States. A Web-based, in-depth questionnaire was designed to quantify researchers' information searching, information use, and information storage behaviors. Descriptive statistics are reported. Additionally, analysis of results is broken out by institutions to compare differences among universities. Significant findings are reported, with the biggest changes because of increased utilization of electronic methods for searching, sharing, and storing scholarly content, as well as for utilizing library services. Generally speaking, researchers in the five universities had similar information-seeking behavior, with small differences because of varying academic unit structures and myriad library services provided at the individual institutions. IntroductionThe advent of personal computers and the Internet followed by the introduction of online electronic journals and databases at the beginning of the 1990s led to the development of online academic resources and the transformation JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 61(5): 2010 of the practice of scholarly communication. The ease of access and ease of use provided by electronic resources has made it easier for researchers to access and share scientific knowledge. Today, the use of online electronic resources has become widespread in almost all fields of scientific research. However, the impact of these new technologies varies considerably both across academic domains and institutions. In an effort to understand how scientists are responding to the transition to electronic communication, the NeoRef research group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has conducted several surveys of academic researchers. This article reports results from the conclusion of a national study surveying academic researcher's information-seeking behavior at five universities. This national study follows the same methodology established in the initial survey of academic scientists initiated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Hemminger, Lu, Vaughan, & Adams, 2007). It extends this work to encompass four additional universities, to study differences among five universities in information-seeking behavior. The main research aims are to provide a baseline description of current informationseeking behavior of academic scientists on a national level as institutions change to primarily electronic communications, to understand where changes in behavior are occurring and why, and what theoretical and practical implications this has for information-seeking behavior models and for library services.This article is the first of three arti...

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“…There is already a body of research looking at information searching behaviours and the assessment of information needs (Ellis & Haugan, 1997;Nicholas;1996;Nicholas & Martin, 1997) and a growing number of publications which relate to searching in digital libraries (Christel & Martin, 1998;Srinivasan et al, 1997). We hope that our work at the OU will contribute to the specification of user needs in an educational environment, in relation to producers of distance learning course materials and to adult learners.…”

Section: Digital Library Evaluation Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

An Evaluation of the Informedia Digital Video Library System at the Open University

Kukulska‐Hulme

Zwan²,

DiPaolo

et al. 1999

Journal of Educational Media

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The past decade has seen the evolution of physical educational resource collections into digital libraries, a process which has opened up a whole new range of uses beyond the traditional ones of reference and individual study in a fixed location. It is becoming more common for institutions of learning to regard their teaching and learning resource materials as important assets that can be shared, incorporated into new courses and accessed remotely by students. With the inclusion of multiple media (text, video and audio), the potential of digital libraries is further enhanced. Early adopters of this technology are information specialists and authors of learning materials, and in some cases, students. Evaluations of digital libraries that are currently underway at various institutions are aiming to determine whether the technology is usable and cost-effective. We also see a focus on the kinds of learning activities that can be supported with digital resources and the best ways of organising and describing them. The evaluation described in this paper is primarily concerned with issues of usability and identifying potential areas of use. A planned second phase of the project will delve more deeply into costs and benefits for users in specific contexts of use.

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Assessing information needs: a case study of journalists

Cited by 37 publications

References 4 publications

Information seeking and use by newspaper journalists

Information seeking and use by newspaper journalists

National study of information seeking behavior of academic researchers in the United States

An Evaluation of the Informedia Digital Video Library System at the Open University

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