Information Need: A Theory Connecting Information Search to Knowledge Formation

Cole, Charles. Information Need: A Theory Connecting Information Search to Knowledge Formation. Medford, New Jersey: Published on behalf of the American Society for Information Science and Technology by Information Today, Inc, 2012. Print: 240 pp. 59.50 USD. ISBN-13 978-1-57387-429-8.As someone who had been taught the art of the reference interview by Cole himself, I assumed that this book would be targeted at reference librarians; however, Cole makes it clear that his target audience is system designers. Still, the book is thought-provoking and its findings will influence my work as a librarian who supports health science researchers.Cole's Information Need addresses the underlying mental processes involved as people move from the first unspoken disquiet of an emerging information need through to the early steps of exploration and, ultimately, to the resolution of the need through knowledge formation. In the course of his study, Cole builds on the rich legacy of theorists in the fields of information science, cognitive psychology and evolutionary psychology.His main thesis is that the information need remains constant throughout the search process. According to Cole, the underlying need is a fixed psychological entity, although the user's sense of the need and the behaviours that are the external manifestation of that need will change over time. Indeed, Cole argues that information need is one of the things that make us truly human. Drawing from evolutionary psychology (which focuses on questions such as does a person recognize a gap or change in the social or physical environment which sets offthe process leading to adaptation?), Cole argues that humans distinguished themselves from Neanderthals in part by developing the neurological substrates for increasingly abstract thinking, including information need, and this conferred an evolutionary advantage.This book provides an accessible refresher on some of the major theoretical thinkers in the field: Shannon's theory of communication of information (c. 1949), Taylor's question negotiation (c. 1968), Bates' berry picking (c. 1989), Kulthau's six stages of the information search process (c. 1991) and Dervin's sense making (c. 1992). New to me, Cole also covered Minksy's frame theory (c. 1975) and Donald's evolutionary psychology on the four cultures of human thinking and reasoning (c. 1991). For the most part, Cole's presentation of theoretical material is quite readable, although I did resort to Minsky's original work on frame theory and found it easier to understand than Cole's description of it.As far as the framework of the book is concerned, Part I consists of seven chapters, the first six of which lay the groundwork for Chapter Seven in which the theory of information need is presented. Part II addresses how the information need works at various stages of inquiry. By way of illustration, Cole very successfully uses examples drawn from the experiences of graduate students as they come to terms with their thesis topics. Part III addresses the application of the theory of information need to information system design. And, finally, Part IV is a particularly strong final chapter that pulls together the many elements explored throughout the book into a succinct, yet focused and fully instantiated understanding of information need, to use Cole's language. …

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