- Taylor's Levels
- Belkin's Information Problems
- Dervin's Information Seeking as Sense-Making
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Models of Information Needs

Cognitive development ... information need

Connect to Developmental Psychology

Users usually identify on their own that they have an information need, however, they may need support in specifying the parameters of their need to focus their efforts and search efficiently. Grover's Diagnostic Model can help librarians diagnose users' information needs. 

How Users Identify an Information Need

Defined as what an individual needs to know to fill in a knowledge/information gap. For example, when a patient seeks a doctor's appointment, they are looking to fill an information gap concerning their physical condition. 

San Jose State University

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

"Information" as knowledge is the fact, subject, or event that an individual consumes and/or communicates

Information as knowledge 

Information behavior describes the way humans interact with information. There is an emphasis on how people seek, retrieve and utilize information.

Information Behavior

Timmins, F. (2006). Exploring the concept of ‘information need’. International journal of nursing practice, 12(6), 375-381.

Exploring the concept of ‘information need’

Information Need

Facts are pieces of information that are known to be true.

Facts

The use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition.

Information Visualization

The behavior of an information user to avoid, discard or reject information that disagrees or alters their already established point of view. This behavior can be used to reinforce bias. 

Information Avoidance

The process in which a person locates information to resolve a need.

Information Seeking

The study of how users interact with information in the library. There is an emphasis on how people seek, retrieve and utilize information.

Information Behavior in Library Science

The practice of limiting or removing access to a text, film, image, news, or other information work. Censored works are often deemed offensive or dangerous.

Censorship

The concept of maintaining information past it's digital expiration. These can be as simple as updates, storage methods, and strategies for preserving websites as well as context.

Digital Preservation

Information and the utilization of it has a start, but how did it become a Science practiced by Librarians as well as Information Professionals? It started off as a concept based on epistemological use in different languages and practices that define the original word of information to mean support or educate. From that, information begins to become a science based on historical innovations that create practices for it and expands its use. In understanding Information Science at a conceptual level, it can be defined and contextualized by its origins as well as where it is going.

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