{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,7]],"date-time":"2026-03-07T03:22:27Z","timestamp":1772853747709,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":43,"publisher":"Wiley","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2006,10,18]],"date-time":"2006-10-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1161129600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":655,"URL":"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/termsAndConditions#vor"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Proc of Assoc for Info"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2005,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>Understanding information users and their behavior is a question of central importance for information research and practice. The paper challenges several aspects of existing approaches to understanding information behavior, including: the focus on individual cognition at the expense of social and affective factors; the construction of information users as defined by their areas of ignorance and uncertainty, rather than their expertise; and the focus on purposive rather than non\u2010purposive information behavior. It argues that only by addressing these weaknesses and developing new research strategies and theoretical frameworks which focus attention on the social processes and relationships which underpin users' information behavior can we hope to develop a truly holistic understanding of the relationship between people and information. The paper uses the author's study of information behavior researcher's constructions of an author (Brenda Dervin) to illustrate how a social constructivist approach can both build on existing approaches to information behavior research and address some of their weaknesses. It argues that social constructivist approaches provide a theoretical lens through which information researchers can gain a clearer picture of information users not as \u2018needy\u2019 individuals to be \u2018helped\u2019, but as social beings, experts in their own life\u2010worlds.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1002\/meet.1450420161","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2006,10,18]],"date-time":"2006-10-18T10:18:09Z","timestamp":1161166689000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":20,"title":["Beyond \u2018needy\u2019 individuals: Conceptualizing information behavior"],"prefix":"10.1002","volume":"42","author":[{"given":"Michael","family":"Olsson","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"311","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2006,10,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_6_2_1","volume-title":"A Barthes reader","author":"Barthes R.","year":"1988"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/016555159001600104"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_4_1","volume-title":"The social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge","author":"Berger Peter L.","year":"1972"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9780511812507"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_6_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/016555158000200302"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_7_1","volume-title":"Conceptions of Library and Information Science","author":"Capurro R.","year":"1992"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_8_1","first-page":"61","volume-title":"Qualitative Research in Information Management","author":"Dervin B.","year":"1992"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_9_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0306-4573(99)00023-0"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_10_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.4135\/9781452233260.n4"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_11_1","first-page":"3","article-title":"Information needs and uses","volume":"21","author":"Dervin B.","year":"1986","journal-title":"Annual Review of Information Science and Technology"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_12_1","volume-title":"The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences","author":"Foucault M.","year":"1970"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_13_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3406\/bude.1972.3176"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_14_1","volume-title":"Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison","author":"Foucault M.","year":"1977"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_15_1","first-page":"1972","volume-title":"Power\/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings","author":"Foucault M.","year":"1980"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_16_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1108\/eb026904"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_17_1","first-page":"127","article-title":"Discursive constructions in the University context: social positioning theory & nature of undergraduates information behaviours","volume":"3","author":"Given Lisa","year":"2002","journal-title":"The New Review of Information Behaviour Research"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_18_1","first-page":"145","article-title":"Information Needs and Use Studies","volume":"25","author":"Hewins E. T.","year":"1990","journal-title":"Annual Review of Information Science and Technology"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_19_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1097-4571(199507)46:6<400::AID-ASI2>3.0.CO;2-Y"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_20_1","volume-title":"Information Retrieval Interaction","author":"Ingwersen P.","year":"1992"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_21_1","first-page":"586","volume-title":"Exploring the Contexts of Information Behaviour","author":"Julien H.","year":"1999"},{"issue":"4","key":"e_1_2_6_22_1","first-page":"339","article-title":"A Principle of Uncertainty for Information Seeking","volume":"49","author":"Kuhlthau C.","year":"1993","journal-title":"Journal of Communication"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_23_1","first-page":"115","volume-title":"Science observed: perspectives on the social study of science","author":"Knorr\u2010Cetina K. D.","year":"1983"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_24_1","first-page":"116","volume-title":"Exploring the Contexts of Information Behaviour","author":"Limberg L.","year":"1999"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_25_1","volume-title":"A Foucault Primer","author":"McHoul A.","year":"1993"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_26_1","first-page":"161","article-title":"Connecting with information sources: how accounts of information seeking take discursive action","volume":"3","author":"McKenzie Pamela J.","year":"2002","journal-title":"The New Review of Information Behaviour Research"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_27_1","volume-title":"Sociology of science: a sociological pilgrimage","author":"Mulkay M. J.","year":"1991"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_28_1","unstructured":"Olsson Michael(2003).The Construction of the Meaning and Significance of an 'Author' among Information Behaviour Researchers: a Social Constructivist Approach. Doctoral dissertation University of Technology Sydney Australia. Available athttp:\/\/adt.lib.uts.edu.au\/public\/adt\u2010NTSM20040715.171150\/index.html"},{"issue":"2","key":"e_1_2_6_29_1","article-title":"Meaning and authority: the social construction of an 'author' among information behaviour researchers","volume":"10","author":"Olsson M.","year":"2005","journal-title":"Information Research"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_30_1","unstructured":"Pettigrew K. E. Fidel F.&Bruce H.(2001).Conceptual frameworks in information behavior.Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 43\u201378."},{"key":"e_1_2_6_31_1","volume-title":"The Foucault Reader","author":"Rabinow P.","year":"1984"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_32_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0740-8188(95)90048-9"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_33_1","volume-title":"The phenomenology of the social world","author":"Schutz Alfred","year":"1972"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_34_1","first-page":"176","volume-title":"Exploring the Contexts of Information Behaviour","author":"Sonnenwald D. H.","year":"1999"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_35_1","first-page":"67","volume-title":"Information seeking in context : proceedings of an International Conference on Research in Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts, 14\u201316 August, 1996, Tampere, Finland","author":"Talja S.","year":"1997"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_36_1","volume-title":"Music, Culture and the Library: An Analysis of Discourses","author":"Talja S.","year":"2001"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_37_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/629971"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_38_1","first-page":"451","volume-title":"Information seeking in context : proceedings of an International Conference on Research in Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts, 14\u201316 August, 1996, Tampere, Finland","author":"Vakkari P.","year":"1997"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_39_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0740-8188(98)90004-4"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_40_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1108\/eb026702"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_41_1","first-page":"15","volume-title":"Fifty Years of Information Progress: A Journal of Documentation Review","author":"Wilson T.","year":"1994"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_42_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0306-4573(97)00028-9"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_43_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.28945\/576"},{"key":"e_1_2_6_44_1","first-page":"71","article-title":"Alfred Schutz, phenomenology and research methodology for information behaviour research","volume":"3","author":"Wilson T.","year":"2003","journal-title":"New Review of Information Behaviour Research"}],"container-title":["Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/api.wiley.com\/onlinelibrary\/tdm\/v1\/articles\/10.1002%2Fmeet.1450420161","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1002\/meet.1450420161","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,20]],"date-time":"2025-10-20T09:59:38Z","timestamp":1760954378000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/meet.1450420161"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2005,1]]},"references-count":43,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2005,1]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1002\/meet.1450420161"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/meet.1450420161","archive":["Portico"],"relation":{},"ISSN":["0044-7870","1550-8390"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0044-7870","type":"print"},{"value":"1550-8390","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2005,1]]},"article-number":"meet.1450420161"}}