Information Needs in Local Authority Social Services Departments: An Interim Report on Project Iniss

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Project INISS is the first major investigation of the information needs of social services staff in this country. This paper describes the origins of the project, the method employed in the first phase of the study, some of the findings, and implications for information services in these environments.

Human Information Behavior

“…Several investigators are associated with this change and the names of Ellis, Dervin, Kuhlthau, and Wilson are regularly associated with both shifts. Wilson's work on the INISS Project (Information needs in local authority social services departments) (Wilson & Streatfield, 1977;Wilson, et al, 1979;Streatfield & Wilson, 1982) employed observation and semi-structured questionnaires and the investigative phase were followed by the evaluated implementation of a number of innovations in social services departments.…”

A research case study for user-centred information literacy instruction: information behaviour of translation trainees

“…(4) computer literacy (items 8,11,14,15); (5) information management skills (items 6,9,10,12,13,16,18);…”

Client information system as an everyday information tool in child protection work

“…The major study originates from the time before electronic CIS with focus on information needs in general [22,23].…”