CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
© Dervin, B. 2001. Cite as: Dervin, B. (2001). What we know about information seeking and use and how research discourse community makes a difference in our knowing. Background paper prepared for Health Information Programs Development, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. Available [online]:
For html version: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/artdirect/artdervin01nlm.html (438 KB .html)
For pdf version: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/artdirect/artdervin01nlm.pdf (615 KB .pdf)

ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this position paper is to describe the current state of empirical study into everyday health information seeking and use and what implications these research findings have for the design of information systems to better serve user needs. Drawing on the two fields that give the most attention to the study of information seeking and use - - library and information science (LIS) and communication (COMM), this position paper addresses how the two fields study information seeking and use differently and what differences these differences make in results. The paper then draws propositional themes out of each body of work showing where the propositions converge and diverge. A major conclusion is that while the two fields differ in numerous ways, they have both converged on a conclusion that expertise-based transmission systems do not succeed communicatively. Bottom-line, what is needed to better serve user needs are systems and procedures built on dialogic communication principles which allow users to access systems and expertise in terms of the time-space contexts of their needs. The first draft of this paper was submitted October 22, 2001 as a background paper to Eliot R. Siegel, PhD, Associate Director for Health Information Programs Development, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. This version, while still dated 2001, has undergone systematic checking and corrections for all citations and references as well as an editing. The paper will be updated based on a new literature review in 2005 and that revised paper will be linked to this one.

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