Cultural information needs of long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members: use of collective and personal information sources about the home country

Abstract

PurposeThis paper presents findings from a study that explored why and how long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members seek and use information about their country of origin and how they manage personal information about their cultural heritage legacy.Design/methodology/approach15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from the Croatian community in New Zealand.FindingsThe main findings reveal two categories of information needs related to a home country: internally motivated and externally motivated. Information is accessed through a network of family and friends, cultural societies and embassies. These information sources are perceived as reliable and trustworthy, and able to offer an interpretation of information along with access to information. The findings highlight the value of personal collections as information sources and the impact of personal information management practices on preserving and sharing information about one's cultural heritage.Originality/valueThis article contributes to the discussion about information needs and practices of immigrant communities by offering arguments that focus on (1) long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members, and (2) seeking information about home country culture and heritage, and (3) the role of personal collections and personal information management in maintaining personal cultural heritage. The results of this study may be of use to libraries, archives and museums in designing and offering their services to expatriates of their country and immigrants in their country, and to the wider information management sector developing services in personal information management.

Uloga knjižnica u migraciji

“…Smatra se da prve generacije migranata održavaju kulturu, dok naredne otkrivaju kulturu kako bi potvrdile svoju višestruku pripadnost (Aizel wood and Doody, 2002;Buitelaar, 2007). Primjerice, potrebe hrvatskih migranata (Krtalić, 2021) tematski su usmjerene na sport, politiku, kuhinju, društvene događaje, glazbu i umjetnost, ali i snalaženje u hrvatskom pravnom sustavu. Izvori gdje se pronalaze informacije o tim potrebama najčešće su osobne mreže poput obitelji i prijatelja, hrvatske udruge u dijaspori, ambasade, novine i društveni mediji te na mrežnim stranicama namijenjenima dijaspori.…”

An exploration of ethnic minorities' needs for multilingual information access of public digital cultural services

“…Non-Internet resources, on the other hand, accounted for 62.4%, primarily from family and relatives, elders and local TV channels (Du and Haines, 2017). Similarly, friends and family were the most frequently used information sources, followed by newspaper websites and Croatian social media (Krtalic, 2021). Sun et al (2020) discovered that urban newcomers prefer to directly receive information from the relevant group rather than searching online.…”

“…It is also popular to use social media WeChat to engage with other Chinese people in Australia (Du et al, 2019). Besides, physical or digital collections established by Croatian libraries, museums, galleries and archives are also valuable information sources (Krtalic, 2021).…”

“…, 2019). Besides, physical or digital collections established by Croatian libraries, museums, galleries and archives are also valuable information sources (Krtalic, 2021).…”

“…Khoir et al (2014) demonstrated that Asian immigrants in South Australia had three information needs: personal, general and formal. Another research, which paid attention to long-settled immigrants in the Croatian community, revealed two categories of information needs related to the home country: internally and externally driven (Krtalic, 2021). Furthermore, refugees are also faced with numerous needs to integrate them into an unfamiliar environment, and Oduntan and Ruthven (2019) demonstrated that contextual and demographic attributes played a significant role.…”