SJSU-SLIS-289

Information behaviour research is another area where there is some degree of cohesion around models and methods that have won some support (e.g., Wilson, 1981, 1999; Dervin, 1992; Kuhlthau, 1994) and, in that field, there is, perhaps, a developing consensus on an appropriate framework for investigation.

The information retrieval specialist, on the other hand, conceives of information in terms of strings of symbols, matching query strings against indexed strings. The librarian sees information in terms of the macro containers; books, reports, journals and, now, electronic documents of various kinds, and, indeed of a higher level of organization, the library itself. In other words, information itself is not a unitary concept, but has different levels of organization, around which different theories are built and practices evolved. Consequently, there cannot be a unitary information science, but only different approaches to information from the perspective of the integrative level involved.

I consider the world not to be in need of any more models of information seeking behavior, since I consider there to be far too many of these out there already. Worse, most of these are not really models at all but vague representations involving arrows, boxes and circles that contain little more than common sense.

Birger Hjørland