Preface

Summary

For a quarter century we have been inundated by prognostications about the information society and changes in the world's economies and cultures. With apologies to Samuel Clemens, I believe that reports of the demise of society and culture have been greatly exaggerated. I do believe, however, that information technologies (computers and communication networks) are bringing about qualitative changes in how we learn and work. In particular, our abilities and capabilities to seek and use information are strongly influenced by these environments. This book aims to explicate some of these changes so that information workers can better prepare for the ongoing changes ahead and system designers can better understand the needs and perspectives of information seekers.

As a teacher, I have always been troubled by students' confusion about memory and learning. Memory is necessary but not sufficient for learning and understanding, and this confusion reflects larger distinctions among information, knowledge, and wisdom. It is this concern that has led me to consider information seeking as a broader process rather than the more limited notion of information retrieval. The book presents a framework for understanding information seeking and applies the framework to an analysis of search strategies and how they have been affected by electronic technology. Based on 10 years of user studies, this book describes how formal, analytical search strategies have been made more powerful by technology and argues for systems that also support intuitive browsing strategies.