University of Washington Libraries Subject and Class Guides - Library and Information Science

Finding Resources on Information Behavior

Brainstorm terms for the concept of information seeking: information seeking behavior/behaviour; information use; information retrieval; information needs; information verification; search strategies; user behavior/behaviour; etc.
Brainstorm terms for the population you selected, for example: lawyers OR attorneys OR counsel OR legal profession, etc. You'll need to use both broader and more specific terms. For example, if you are interested in the information seeking behavior of pregnant women, you will also need to search for articles on how women look for information on health care. For background information on a standard occupation, career, or profession, use the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH)earn more about that field. If your group is not covered by the OOH, consider finding a general article in an encyclopedia.
Brainstorm the types of information you think your population needs. Your group may have multiple needs. For example, beekeepers might have needs in the following areas: business, marketing, scientific, agricultural.
Determine the subjects/disciplines covered by your population, for example: medicine, communication, psychology, art, education, women studies.
Select databases to find articles on your topic. Who might be interested in studying the information behavior of your population? Google Scholar is often a good starting point, as you can see what types of journals will cover your topic and proceed from there to search a specialized subject database.
Use the library and information science article databases, found under the Find Articles tab on this subject guide, to begin your search. It is likely you'll need to search databases outside the library and information science field, depending on your population and topic. For example, search the PubMed or Medline database to find articles written in health care journals related to the information behavior or information needs of pregnant women.
You might also want to use the UW WorldCat catalog to identify books and articles on your population and topic.
Check the terms you brainstormed for both your population, your topic, and the concept of information seeking behavior against the database's thesaurus/subject guide. For more focused seaarching, use the thesaurus/subject guide terms.
Be flexible! Try combining keywords not found in the thesaurus with subject terms. For example, your population name may not appear in the thesaurus, but various forms of the concept of information seeking may be, so you would want to combine a keyword search on doctors OR physicians with the subject term used for information seeking behavior. In the LISA database, your search would look like this: (physicians or doctors) AND information seeking behaviour. (note that the LISA thesaurus uses the British spelliing of behaviour, since LISA is a U.K.-produced database.)
Students in the School of Library an Information Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill often write their master's papers on various aspects of information seeking. Check UNC's Master's Paper Index to see if a student has covered your topic or a related topic. Most papers are available in full-text, and the bibliographies can be useful.
Check to see if the UW Libraries has the journals you need, and in what format. Not all are available in full-text online. Use our "pull & scan" pilot program to request electronic copies of articles we own in print format, and use the interlibrary loan service to request articles we don't own.
For articles that are especially important to your work, perform a "cited reference" search in the Web of Science database for articles that cite your articles. A link to this database is under the Find Articles tab on the Library & Information Science subject guide, and then under the all LIS databases listing.
If you have tried numerous concepts in several databases and do not turn up any relevant articles, it is possible that no one has studied the information seeking behavior or information needs of your population. In that event, try a broader search (e.g., health care professionals instead of physicians). The narrower your focus and the smaller your population, the less likely there is to be research available. Discussion of their needs, however, may be included in a comprehensive article covering a broader population.