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Foreign-trained health professionals (doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and others) arrive in the US and Canada every year to find a professional environment that is often unwelcoming and complex. In this work-in-progress poster we explore the experiences and information behavior of these professionals as they search for health- and career-related information to integrate into their new professional environments. Results from this research can in the future support the design of information resources and services to better serve foreign-trained health professionals.

This poster presents an exploration of parental perceptions of the everyday life information behaviors of children between 4 and 8 years of age. Twenty-three parents/caregivers completed a survey about their children's information behaviors related to their hobbies and interests. Findings indicate that young children exhibit a heavy reliance on interpersonal interactions for information seeking and information sharing, while information use is more likely to be an individual activity. Information behaviors were evident in children who engaged in a variety of free-time activities, though not all free-time activities resulted in reported engagement in information behaviors. The findings of this study indicate that children as young as 4 years of age engage in observable information behaviors related to their everyday free-time activities. Additional research is needed to better understand young children's everyday life information behaviors.

This paper presents the findings from a project about how international students seek and acquire information during their settlement in an unknown geo-spatial environment. Through semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and cognitive mapping with twenty international students, this study examines their information needs, information sources, and settlement experiences in the host country. Findings of the study include their (1) focus on acquiring basic, survival-related information; (2) active use of internet-based information sources including online/mobile maps; (3) information behavior of wandering around and information encountering; (4) co-national social networks playing a key role as information sources. Implications are discussed in ways to further our understanding of international students’ information behavior and promote its improvement.

We all expect government agencies to use high quality evidence when creating public policy; however, in a democratic society, cultural values also play a role. For example Europe and America have different policies with respect to genetically modified foods and nuclear energy. Our goal is to explore information behaviors that surround the process of transforming scientific evidence into public policy in order to uncover where (and how) cultural values might be embedded. We analyzed more than a thousand citations from three scientific reviews that were conducted by scientists based in the EU and US on di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), a plastic softener that is controversial because of potential impacts for industry and public health. Our analysis suggests that culture may influence public policy by establishing the initial scope of a review, by determining which evidence should be included, and by framing how evidence is presented.

Need for Cognition and Need for Cognitive Closure are two stable traits that can enlighten the understanding of inter-individual variations in information behavior. Following a qualitative phase, an information behavior scale was developed using items related to the ways in which information is needed, sought, used and shared. This scale was tested with 122 undergraduate students. Results of a factor analysis indicated three different and non-mutually exclusive aspects of information behavior: orientation to rule following, preference for familiarity and simplicity, and desire for intellectual independence. Analyses of variances for each factor, using scores for Need for Cognition and Need for Cognitive Closure as independent variables, indicated that these two traits produce significant effects on information behavior. A significant main effect of Need for Cognition was observed for the orientation to rule following and the desire for intellectual independence. A significant main effect of Need for Cognition was observed for the preference for familiarity and simplicity. Lastly, a significant interaction effect between Need for Cognition and Need for Cognitive Closure was also observed for the desire for intellectual independence.

In Information Science (IS), as well as other disciplines, discourse analysis has been used to extend the range of contextual data gathered using other research approaches. This form of textual analysis can enrich our understanding of complex information practices and contexts, particularly in relation to the ways that society and individuals construct understandings of various phenomena. However, not all discourse analysis approaches are the same; linguistic, Foucouldian, and psycho-social discourse analysis practices vary in their intent and their application. This panel will provide an overview of the discourse analysis methodology, including how the approach is conducted in various disciplines. By focusing on three projects by IS scholars that use discourse analysis, the range of data collection and analysis possibilities – including benefits and limitations of the approach – will be explored. The panel will also discuss how discourse analysis can be used in mixed methods studies, or with research participants engaged in other methods, to extend the research knowledge in the discipline.

This paper reports on the social context of mobile information behavior based on an interview and diary study (n=19). We examine different types of mobile information behavior and how these are affected by social variables. In addition, we compare social and non-social mobile information behavior in terms of where it occurs, applications utilized, expressed information needs of users, and levels of satisfaction. We promote a broader view of how social context shapes and is shaped by mobile information behavior.

Information seeking often occurs in groups and communities, and these communities differ in ways that impact their usefulness to their members. This study uses grounded theory and information horizons mapping to explore information seeking and sharing in two place-based communities in Florida, addressing factors associated with participants’ evaluations of their local communities of support. These factors provide insight into parents’ expectations of their information worlds and expectations related to information behaviors of actors within their local information environments. The study finds similar stakeholder groups similar expressions of the belief that some communities were “better” than others for raising children with Down syndrome in both areas, but varying evaluations of their own communities based on personal experiences. Participants agreed on the following factors as important indicators of a strong local community of support: existence and activities of local parent networks and organizations, access to quality education and health care, full inclusion in regular education when desired, social inclusion of their children into the community at large, and employability for adults with Down syndrome.

In this paper we examine will examine how the everyday life of information seeking of pornography reveals two things. In contradiction of the general theory that says documents are sought for their cognitive value, the commonplace phenomenon of browsing pornography online demonstrates that documents are sought for their affective value. Furthermore, affective response reveals ways that the information seeker's own body is an important element in the negotiation of assessing and understanding documents during the seeking process. We also assess the degree to which these specific observations are true in more general settings.

The pace of technological change is rapid and the impact of this acceleration on the information behavior of youth from diverse backgrounds is multifaceted. Most young people have online access in some form, but the uses and quality of access vary tremendously (Madden, Lenhart, Duggan, Cortesi & Gasser, 2013). With the growth and variation of information behaviors among youth in social media and the mobile Web, keeping pace with research methods used to capture these behaviors and phenomena continues to be a discussion among scholars. Adding to the complications of research in this area, youth are increasingly using information and communications technologies (ICT) across platforms for a variety of information behaviors, including academic and social reasons (Agosto & Abbas, 2010). It is often not enough to solely examine a young person’s Twitter feed - we need to see how that conversation carries from Twitter, to direct messages, to texting, to a Facebook post and so on. This variation suggests a need for greater nuance in research (Madden, Lenhart, Duggan, Cortesi & Gasser, 2013; Gasser, Cortesi, Malik & Lee, 2012). This panel will bring together several researchers experienced in studying youth information practices to discuss their methodologies and strategies in dealing with these intricate issues. This panel will be conducted in a roundtable style – encouraging deep conversation between the researchers and the audience. This will be followed by a small group discussions with the audience and conclude by sharing back best practices uncovered through the group discussions. Through attending this panel, attendees will engage with current developments in diverse youth, ICT and research methodologies, and identify priorities and approaches for future work in these areas.

Despite a preponderance of research into student online information seeking behaviors, we still know precious little about the online information seeking of their teachers. Yet teachersare the ones who shape thecurriculum in the classroom and shape the way Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is utilized in formal learning contexts. Online information resources are particularly important for science teachers, who require sound, up-to-date knowledge in a field where new breakthroughs are always emerging. To better understand the way science teachers use and share information online, the research team performed five casestudies, followingfive science teachers’ online behaviors for their classroom practice over the course of three months, collecting initial data through aquestionnaire, two interviews, and longitudinal web histories. This study contributes to a broader understanding of information behavior of professional practice, and provides valuable information about an understudied group of users.

Doctoral students rely on their peers as important information sources. However, information behavior studies in academic settings most often describe peers as intermediaries who simply assist individuals’ information seeking for academic resources. To address this issue, the authors interviewed six LIS doctoral students at Florida State University in order to explore the types of peer relationships and information sharing between LIS doctoral students. The preliminary findings confirmed the existence of close, social/academic, and other peers that can be categorized as special, collegial, and information peers using Kram and Isabella's continuum of peer relationships. In addition, it was found that work-related and everyday life information is shared in all three types of peer relationships, while relational strength influences the scope and depth of information sharing. Future work will investigate the role of peers as mentors and agents of socialization in academic settings, and will further address the types of information shared as part of such mentoring relationships.

The World Wide Web (the Web) is ubiquitous in people's lives today and is used on a daily basis to get information on a variety of topics. While information seeking behavior has been studied extensively in a Web setting, many of these studies assume a task-oriented search for information even though much of the information seeking on the Web is not necessarily done with previously stated information needs or goals. Some Web information seeking activity is done for purposes of entertainment, or for simply connecting with other people (for example, via social media websites), oftentimes with an unstructured, serendipitous approach. Information seeking in general, and information acquisition, in particular, is a pleasurable activity in and of itself. Surfing the Web for pleasure is a prominent activity and worthy of our attention as researchers. To do so, we need an appropriate framework. This paper borrows ideas from a social-cognitive approach to the uses and gratifications paradigm in order to investigate the suitability of that framework in a Web information access setting. More specifically, we use the answers from questions we asked to 180 survey respondents about their motivations for surfing the Web for pleasure and their affective states during and after their surfing sessions. The findings indicate that the social-cognitive approach to uses and gratifications is a useful baseline. We make enhancements to it and propose our own framework for research in this area. We present data to bolster the notion that the seeking and acquisition of information brings pleasure and we propose a framework to study user motivations and affective states both during and after their “surfing the Web for pleasure” sessions.

Equity of access is an imperative in the global information world of the 21st Century. For the information outsider however, or those who might be disenfranchised by social constructions, economic, legal, educational, or political circumstances, or geographical location, information poverty is a disheartening reality (Chatman, 1992; 1996; 2000; Burnett, Bessant, & Chatman, 2001). The functions of this panel are to explore the information worlds of select marginalized populations and the resulting implications for information behavior, social interaction, and pedagogy. It is intended to begin providing a framework for understanding the interactions between information, information access, information needs and uses, and legal and social contexts. The presentations and ensuing discussion will offer insight into physical and digital information access strategies and implications for Library and Information Science (LIS) education and practice.

The poster offers a unique opportunity to learn about the information behavior of a group of medical students using a social networking site (SNS) group over the period of almost three, full, consecutive, academic years without faculty supervision to facilitate their learning. Mixed methods approach to data collection and analysis allowed us to obtain a comprehensive overview of the SNS group usage and conclude that it played an important role in student learning. Patterns of the group utilization became the evidence of extending the classic principles of PBL in medical education into a digital learning environment, which, in its turn, results in gradual transformation of medical students' information behavior. By shifting from more traditional forms of communication and information technology to using content available through social media, medical students incorporate SNS in their learning as an online environment that supplements their face-to-face interactions and facilitates acquisition and/or exchange of school-related information in easier, more efficient ways.

Participant reactivity -- a phenomenon in which the responses and/or behaviors of study participants are affected by their awareness that they are part of a study -- is often deemed to be a potential threat to the research validity of a study's findings. However, a growing number of studies report that research processes that engender participant reactivity may actually lead to important benefits both for participants (e.g., therapeutic benefits) and researchers (e.g., deeper understandings and more relevant and actionable findings). This mutually beneficial situation can help to maximize a different type of validity termed "street validity" by Greenwood (as cited in Boudah & Lenz, 2000; 2003), which directly relates to research impact. This paper reports findings from a longitudinal mixed-method investigation of the information behavior of people with type 2 diabetes, focusing on participants' self-reports regarding whether/how they felt that participating in the study had influenced (or will influence) their behavior. Many participants described specific ways in which they found their participation helpful. For example, they reported that it led to decreased denial, increased self-awareness, and improved motivation to look for and make use of diabetes-related information. This paper explores the potential trade-off between research validity and street validity within a qualitative study and posits that, as was the case with this study, important lessons can be learned as a result of directly questioning participants about whether/how their participation in the study influenced them and that these lessons can perhaps be implemented within the context of applying the research findings in assisting other people from the study population.

An information horizon (IH) is a mental map where individuals position various sources according to their preferences in specific contexts. IH not only highlights the roles of contexts, situations, and social networks in individuals' information behavior, but also emphasizes the importance of examining the relationships among sources used by individuals. This study investigates undergraduate students' source use preferences in academic contexts---course-related, program-related, and coursework-related moral-support situations. The study also investigates the referral networks among sources used by students. Interviews were conducted with twenty undergraduate students. Each participant was also asked to draw their IH maps. Based on existent IH literature, the study used innovative methods to analyze and present the data. Results show that students had different source preferences in different situations in academic contexts. While peers were consulted across all situations, most of the other sources were typically consulted only in certain situations. As to source referrals, interpersonal sources (e.g., peers) were more likely to direct students to other sources than to receive referrals from other sources, and experts tended to direct students to a wide range of sources, especially to official sources. The findings suggest that universities should facilitate students' use of both official sources and experts as academic sources.

Social tagging is evaluated as an information behavior in a small world, using Chatman, Burnett, and Besant's Theory of Normative Behavior. A survey was distributed to people who assign tags to transgender-themed books in LibraryThing, an social network site that allows members to catalog and tag their personal book collections. This study first establishes that there is an identifiable community of interest and then lays the groundwork for understanding the function of tagging in sharing information among a marginalized community for whom vocabulary and taxonomies are vital.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...' --- Isaac Asimov From the discovery of penicillin and x-rays to the development of many of today's chemotherapy agents, serendipitous findings tangential to the researcher's intended purpose, those "That's funny..." moments, have greatly impacted the health and well-being of society. As an information behavior, these unexpected findings are an example of the Opportunistic Discovery of Information (ODI). ODI has been described in many contexts, from information behavior in virtual worlds to the impact of information encountering on health behaviors. Yet, little is known about instances of ODI within the context of scientific research. This study uses content analysis to reveal reported instances of ODI in recently published biomedical literature. Our findings propose a taxonomy of term use indicating the presence of serendipity in the research process and reveal the relationship between the authors' word choice for serendipity and specific types of ODI experiences.

This study investigates how students learn to collaborate in a guided discovery-based program of game design learning, and how e-learning systems and environmental supports afford collaboration. We address how students self-initiate and strategize collaborative practices to achieve a project-based learning goal, and how they interact with peers, teachers, and technology to develop a shared understanding of the primary game design task. We also consider student engagement in the meta-processes that support this task's completion, such as delegation, teamwork, and resource use. The methods applied include two main steps - categorical analysis of 18 teams' interview transcripts and in depth case study analysis of four teams' interview responses and process artifacts, with a focus on the themes that are identified from the first step. We propose an initial framework outlining general dimensions of collaborative information behavior for knowledge building contexts. And we conclude with questions for future research.

Worldwide, mental illnesses are extremely prevalent and costly. Help-seeking and recovery may be facilitated by information and online resources. The aim of this literature review is to examine interest in mental health within Library and Information Science empirical research, published from 2000 onward, with a focus on information behavior. In this preliminary phase, we performed a qualitative content analysis on 51 relevant articles. Results show that mental health is not only examined as a topic, but also as a personal state (illness or state to maintain) and as a professionally-related activity. Studies investigating information behavior mainly focus on the use of the Internet or online resources, with very few exploring the purposes for which these resources are used. Research opportunities for this field of inquiry are further discussed.

Based on interviews with people who had diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease in Flint, Michigan, we found people actively doing information work to manage their health in the face of poverty, potentially violent conditions, high stress, and a distrust of institutionalized medicine. More specifically, we observed people translating information into the context of their everyday lives. We present various translations of health information in the form of local strategies for chronic illness management. Study findings highlight initial implications to support health information services on a community level.

Adults managing life with Type 2 diabetes may receive material about diabetes and management, or they may seek health information. They may also keep information items in the home for subsequent use. Currently, health technology is striving to push topically relevant information items, but successful technology would deliver unique, but relevant information. Thus, a holistic view of kept information items, item uses, and information needs are required. Research of information needs, seeking, and use (INSU) often views information needs as explicit statements, but latent information needs may also exist. Kept and used information items may serve to project these implicit information needs. This exploratory study aimed to identify both explicit and implicit information needs of adults living with Type 2 diabetes. Semi-structured interviews conducted in 21 participant's homes focused on kept and used items (n = 300). Resulting rich narratives provided insight of context, item acquisition, and item usage. The results indicate that the majority of items kept and used to manage life with diabetes are paper based and pertain to nutritional management. However, items and their abundance also projected information needs. These findings and their implications contribute to discussions of diabetes-related collections development and health information technology tools.

This session introduces a new approach to the concept of information, utilizing an arts-informed, visual approach. 137 graduate students from a North American iSchool were asked "What is information?" and responded by drawing upon a 4" by 4" piece of paper, coined an "iSquare." The drawings of information (Figure 1) were analyzed using compositional and thematic analysis techniques adapted from precedent visual studies. The results include the identification of the most common graphical representations used to express information, as well as three themes pertaining to the social, technological, and "informational" dimensions of information. This panel employs the iSquare study and its outcomes as a springboard to engage -- afresh -- the concept of information today. After the original research is reported, invited experts from information science, museum studies, and social epistemology will offer commentary. "The Concept Formerly Known as Information" is a riff on the antics of American singer-songwriter Prince, who in 1993 changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph and was called (for a short time) "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince." This panel seeks a similar jolt to the status-quo when the concept of information is transformed from word to image.

Searching large collections of digitized books is a relatively new area in information-seeking and retrieval research, made possible by initiatives such as Google Books and the HathiTrust Digital Library. The availability of large full-text book collections is transforming how users search and interact with information in books, but the characteristics of these changes are unknown. This paper aims to provide insight into the characteristics of full-text searches in a large collection of digitized books and is the first step in a broader research agenda intended to improve book retrieval. To better understand the types of queries that users are issuing to full-text-book collections, we analyzed a full year of anonymized query logs from the HathiTrust Digital Library full-text search engine. We also manually classified a random sample of 600 queries to develop a taxonomy of book search query types. We found that users are beginning to search for information in books instead of searching for books. Searches still largely follow bibliographic models, but, as expected, new types of searches are beginning to take advantage of full-text capabilities. Additionally, comparing the results of our query log analysis to searches in other domains, we found similar search patterns including short queries, sessions with only a few queries, and users viewing only a few pages of results per query. We discuss how these findings can be used to characterize users of large full-text book collections.

This panel will discuss the current state of research and present new work examining teens and social media. Panelists will share work that approaches this area in new ways, including an examination of question asking practices on social media, message sharing practices on Facebook, and teen social media and information uses during game design work. The panel will conclude with an interactive discussion designed to identify future research collaborations, directions, and priorities at the intersection of teens and social media. ASIS&T SIG USE has agreed to sponsor this panel.

As people increasingly search the Internet for health-related topics like treatment options, it is important to understand how they construct their searches, and how they understand the results. In this paper, we report results from an exploratory lab study with 40 cross-sectional participants and follow-up interviews with eleven of them about their use of search engines to find treatment options. While corroborating prior research concerning basic consumer health information search behaviors (e.g., query length and evaluation of results), our findings also extend the current understanding of health information searching by suggesting that the process of seeking treatment options is shaped by consumers' propensity for familiar and confirming information as well as their desire to seek novel information. Furthermore, our findings suggest an under-investigated idea of the importance of a search timeline: that is that a consumer is likely to look for confirming or novel information depending on where they are in a particular timeline during their search. The results indicate that search systems can better support consumers in finding novel information about treatment options, but that it would be best to introduce novel information after satisfying consumers search for general and familiar information.

To understand users' multimedia needs and searching behaviors on the Web, this study observed and interviewed twenty college students' multimedia searching behaviors in Korea. By analyzing the data set of this study, the preliminary findings are presented in terms of needs and uses, searching sources, relevance criteria, and search barriers for multimedia resources. Participants searched multimedia resources with diverse needs and uses. With a wide variety of needs, participants were likely to search multimedia resources using search engines mostly because of their familiarity. Particularly, when they search multimedia for their entertainment, file quality and copyright were significant criteria for relevance judgment. Insufficient visual description and limited preview features were reported as major search barriers.

First-year writing students are a very large, diverse, and ubiquitous information user group, as writing courses are typically required of all undergraduate students, regardless of major. While in their institution's writing program, students frequently must utilize research (information) in their writing assignments. While this formal, task-related information behavior is important for stakeholders in the fields of information science and the humanities to understand, little research has been done on this significant group of students. This study arrived at key exploratory findings by collecting data and context from first-year writing students through semi-structured interviews. The researchers found that students continue to be Google-dependent and fearful of using Wikipedia, though they use it anyway. Students appear to operate in comfort and convenience zones, and distinctly prefer secondary sources which they fail to read completely. People comprise a major part of students' information seeking behavior, but students tend only to consult friends and family members. This study offers practical implications of these behaviors which may be used to help students and inform further research.

The study reported in this paper is part of an ongoing research project exploring marketing professionals' information behavior. A diary study was conducted with seven marketing professionals who contributed a total of 1,198 diary entries during their five working days. This paper presents the results of how marketing professionals use and share information in their daily work activities including report writing, partnership maintenance, competitors' behavior and performance analysis, and strategic planning. The results show the subsequent use of information obtained and patterns of information sharing occurrence by marketing professionals.

In everyday work, people often turn to their colleagues for information. Those colleagues play the role of information mediators by intervening in the information seeking and use of others. This study investigates how people initiate the information mediation process, how they influence one another's subsequent information behavior, and how they benefit from the process, from the perspectives of both the information seeker and the information mediator. To examine the dynamics of the information mediation process, an online diary survey was conducted in a real-world workplace setting, followed by in-depth interviews. This paper reports on a preliminary analysis of 450 diary entries in which participants reported the work tasks that required advice from colleagues as well as the extent of the advice provided. Analysis of the diary data revealed the types of tasks, types of advice, and relationship between task and advice types. The results suggest that people perceive tasks differently depending on whether they play the role of information seeker or information mediator, while their perception of advice seems to be independent of their role in the information mediation process. These typologies serve as a basis for further analyzing reciprocal influences between information seekers and mediators.

This study examines first-generation college (FGC) students' information seeking in coursework-related situations and the relationship between personality and source use behavior. A web survey was used to collect data. Four-hundred and fifty FGC students participated in the study. A two-step cluster analysis was used to identify three subgroups of personality profiles from the sample. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) and multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data. Results show that extroverts used human sources more frequently across all coursework-related situations and tended to consult peers in the same course in their information seeking processes. Conscientious students tended to consult professors and advisors in their coursework-related information seeking processes. Calm and open-minded extroverts consulted human sources (both experts and non-experts) more often and used more diverse sources than nervous and close-minded introverts. The study enriches FGC student literature in information behavior and further incorporates personality traits as predictors of information use. The study also implies that universities and academic libraries should support orientation programs and organizations that can help FGC students, especially introverts, develop their social networks and have an easy transition into college.

An important question in information-seeking behavior is how people decide on which information source to use when they need information for their work-related tasks. This question becomes especially pertinent in light of the varying degree of legitimacy accorded to digital sources, and the use of new channels of access such as mobiles and tablets. Building upon an earlier study on source use, and using the institutional theory, this is a report of a survey-inprogress of medical residents in one or more Boston hospitals. The study will also examine the role of serendipity in source choice when residents encounter information when not consciously looking for it. Insights gained from the study will build on past work on information behavior and source choice, as well as the application of institutional theory to hospital settings. It will help hospitals make optimal provision of information source types based on their preference and usage by medical residents.

The article reports the results of a study that explored users' preference for search engines in relation to other information sources. The study used qualitative and quantitative methods to examine participants' information seeking with and without access to search engines. The study identified search engine features that users find valuable, such as perception of convenience, independence and privacy, as well as specific functionality (keyword searching, autocomplete feature). The study found that inability to use search engines caused an increase in negative emotions, especially among seekers with limited information horizons; led to the decrease in use of other electronic channels and increased inquiries to other individuals and the use of print sources. Our findings suggest that seekers operate within digital and traditional information fields and do not easily switch between the fields without major disruption to their habitual pattern. The discussion about positive and negative effects of search engine preference is included.

This panel reports on methodological innovation now underway as information behavior scholars begin to experiment with visual methods. The session launches with a succinct introduction to visual methods by Jenna Hartel and then showcases three exemplar visual research designs. First, Dianne Sonnenwald presents the “information horizon interview” (1999, 2005), the singular visual method native to the information behavior community. Second, Anna Lundh (2010) describes her techniques for capturing and analyzing primary school children's information activities utilizing video recordings. Third, Nancy Fried Foster (Foster & Gibbons, 2007) reports how students, staff and faculty members produce maps, drawings, and photographs as a means of contributing their specialist knowledge to the design of library technologies and spaces at the University of Rochester. Altogether, the panel will present a collage of innovative visual research designs and engage the associated epistemological, theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues. All speakers will have 15 minutes and be timed to allow a minimum of 30 minutes for audience questions, comments, and discussion. Upon the conclusion attendees will have gained: knowledge of the state of the art/science of visual methods in information behavior research; an appreciation for the richness the approach brings to the specialty; and a platform to take new visual research designs forward.

In today's media-rich world, youths are not merely consumers, but also active creators of information. Digital tools allow authors to more easily remix and copy previous works. These new media practices have brought issues of appropriation, copyright, privacy, information behavior, and information literacy to the forefront. In this paper, we present a case study of a hybrid online and offline community of middle school students designed to help them develop identities as scientists through storytelling. The case illuminates the complex issues of appropriation and remix that arise when youths create, share, copy, and adapt their peers' media artifacts. Our analysis then highlights how youths, who are evolving as information literate individuals, identify with (a) attitudes towards information appropriation, (b) strategies of remix, and (c) the underlying values that motivate their ideas about remix practices.

Longstanding approaches to health and health care are failing us: costs have skyrocketed while care quality remains highly uneven; the majority of health care in North America takes place in homes and communities rather than hospitals and doctor's offices; and institutionalized health care often does little to support people psychosocially or prevent people from becoming ill in the first place. Enthusiasm for the potential of consumer participation in health and health care has found advocates among health systems and insurers keen to reduce costs and patient organizations agitating for improved recognition and care. Alongside these trends, we find an increased focus on consumer health in the disciplines of information science and informatics. Health information science studies examine information behavior, information policy, terminology and information retrieval systems. Health informaticians focus on the design and evaluation of consumer-facing technologies such as personal health records and health behavior tracking systems. Scholars in both fields pursue research concerning social media, including online patient communities. However, despite the growing momentum of scholarly activity in both fields, as well as their topical overlap, the fields remain largely separate, with differing research traditions and scholarly communities. In this panel, we find synergy and common ground between the two fields through an exploration of the conference themes of information, interaction and innovation. In a lightning talk format, eight panelists representing diverse research areas will share their perspectives upon key insights that each field can bring to the other. Building on the arguments presented, panelists and the audience will reflect on the state of consumer health research, and brainstorm regarding future scholarly directions that will leverage the strengths of both fields.

Consumer health information behavior (CHIB), which encompasses a person's health-related information needs and the activities in which they engage in order to look for, manage, and use information related to their health condition, impacts a person's ability to manage and cope with a disease. Although CHIB has been found to be both dynamic and situational, very few studies have undertaken to study this phenomenon as a process that unfolds across time. This paper reports results from a longitudinal, mixed-method study of the information behavior of people with type 2 diabetes. This study aimed to discover this group's information needs and information seeking practices, the factors that motivate or impede their information seeking and use, the sources and types of information that they find useful, and how all of these changed across time. This paper focuses on results related to participants' perceptions regarding the usefulness of different sources and types of diabetes-related information. The findings indicate that important changes took place in participants' perceptions regarding the usefulness of information as their disease progressed, as their attitudes changed, and as their awareness of their information needs changed. A suggestion is made to extend the definition of information behavior to encompass an earlier state (“incognizance”) in which a person has not yet become aware that he/she has an information need and is, thus, less able (or unable) to recognize the potential relevance and usefulness of information. Implications for the important role that researchers and information professionals can play in helping to mitigate incognizance and its potentially devastating impacts are discussed.

With Carol Kuhlthau as moderator, we propose a panel of six information behavior researchers with diverse views on operationalizing findings and theoretical positions in information behavior/information seeking research for application in information system design and for re-envisioning library and information services for technological information environments. Whereas computer-science designed information systems and technological environments in libraries are designed for the user with an answer or at least the form of the answer firmly in mind, information seeking research is interested in the user with a complex information need who utilizes an information system or library service for knowledge construction and sense-making. The dilemma is how to communicate information behavior/information seeking research and objectives to those who design the systems. The panelists propose different views on and solutions.

Web-based geographical information systems have become ubiquitous in daily life. They include such familiar tools as Google Earth, Google Maps, and a plethora of geolocational mobile applications for smart phones. These geospatial web systems present new opportunities for users to discover information opportunistically, in unexpected and non-intentional ways. This paper examines one specific type of incidental information acquisition - information encountering (Erdelez, 1997) - as it may occur in geospatial web environments. Accordingly, this preliminary research brings together findings and frameworks developed within two diverse fields: a) human information behavior, and b) geographic information systems. The Information Encountering model serves as a conceptual framework for understanding how the distinctive characteristics of geospatial web applications impact the nature of information encountering episodes. Exploratory research was conducted via a focus group session. Users were found to engage regularly with a variety of geolocational systems and report frequent episodes of information encountering, but they also display difficulty recalling details of individual episodes. Findings suggest the need to develop tools to capture information encountering experiences in the field, at or close to the time they occur.

Construct validity refers to the degree to which inferences can legitimately be made from the operationalizations in a study to the theoretical constructs on which those operationalizations were based. When both convergent and discriminant validities are satisfied, construct validity is said to be satisfied. Verifying survey items for construct validity becomes important, especially when these items are self-developed and not based on questionnaires used in past studies. Yet, there is lack of clarity on how to go about doing so. While researchers in other fields have come up with simple techniques, these have not been readily applied to the field of information behavior. Using the case of questionnaire design for source choice in information behavior, this methodological paper describes the use of a 2-stage sorting procedure based on Moore and Benbasat's 1991 work. The procedure can serve as a guide to researchers using questionnaire design for studies in information seeking behavior and should help lend greater rigor to such studies.

We report preliminary results of a mixed methods study of relationships between family-based information behavior and social support in chronic illness. Twenty-four participants (12 people with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) and 12 people with diabetes) completed surveys, visualized their family-based social support networks, and participated in in-depth, qualitative interviews. Findings revealed that our sample of people with diabetes had significantly larger family support networks than did PHAs. These differences seem linked to greater interpersonal constraints in talking about HIV/AIDS in families. Yet, the two groups did not differ in terms of perceived social support (PSS), frequency of collaborative information behavior (CIB), or use of information obtained collaboratively. However, a surprising relationship between CIB and PSS emerged among diabetics but not PHAs: the greater the frequency of CIB with family members, the less supportive they were perceived to be. This seems rooted in the prevalence of attempted influence and interference by diabetics' family members. Nevertheless, among both PHAs and diabetics, a significant overlap existed between receipt of informational and emotional support. Indeed, information sharing and emotional support could be the same in interactions such as questions of concern, goal attainment, and caring forwards. This study is among the first to document differences in social support and CIB among people with different diseases, pointing to the merit of information services and systems differentiated by disease. The overlap between informational and emotional support suggests the value of organizing, presenting, or rating health information according to emotional valence. Demonstrating that CIB may have negative effects challenges information scientists to reconsider whether receipt of information is always positive. Health information behavior in families therefore appears more complex than has been previously shown.

The Internet and new technologies are changing the information behavior of news readers. This study explored the perception of news and online news reading behavior by applying Savolainen's (1995) model of Everyday Life Information Seeking. Online news readers participated in a two-phase mixed method study. The first phase involved a web survey with 148 participants recruited through the website of a local newspaper and the second phase followed up with think-aloud interviews with 20 survey respondents. The findings revealed that while for some respondents the perception of news is tied to traditional media, another group held a much broader view that went beyond what is reported by professional journalists. These respondents considered “all of the Internet” as news. Findings of this study indicate that that online news reading mostly happens on a habitual basis without conscious decisions from news consumers. Many respondents stated that they follow the same routine of reading news online at specific times every day and monitor news throughout the day. However, for many respondents incidental exposure to online news is becoming a typical way to get informed about the new events.

OBJECTIVE: This article summarizes the results of a descriptive qualitative study addressing the question, what are the information practices of the various professionals involved in disaster preparedness? We present key results, but focus on issues of choice and adaptation of models and theories for the study. METHODS: Primary and secondary literature on theory and models of information behavior were consulted. Taylor's Information Use Environments (IUE) model, Institutional Theory, and Dervin's Sense-Making metatheory were used in the design of an open-ended interview schedule. Twelve individual face-to-face interviews were conducted with disaster professionals drawn from the Pennsylvania Preparedness Leadership Institute (PPLI) scholars. Taylor's Information Use Environments (IUE) model served as a preliminary coding framework for the transcribed interviews. RESULTS: Disaster professionals varied in their use of libraries, peer-reviewed literature, and information management techniques, but many practices were similar across professions, including heavy Internet and email use, satisficing, and preference for sources that are socially and physically accessible. CONCLUSIONS: The IUE model provided an excellent foundation for the coding scheme, but required modification to place the workplace in the larger social context of the current information society. It is not possible to confidently attribute all work-related information practices to professional culture. Differences in information practice observed may arise from professional training and organizational environment, while many similarities observed seem to arise from everyday information practices common to non-work settings.

This paper has two goals: (1) to introduce the Person-in-Environment (PIE) framework, which the author developed to measure the relative impacts of socio-structural and individual factors on individual information behavior; and (2) to demonstrate PIE's applicability. An empirical study on the factors of students' library usage is presented. PIE addresses a research gap in the information behavior area---the shortage of societal-level research. In PIE, individual factors (e.g., cognitive and affective) and socio-structural factors (e.g., information resources distribution) are conceptualized as inter-related. Thus, they need to be tested simultaneously with a multivariate method such as structural equation modeling (SEM). Previously, it was difficult to link individual and socio-structural factors. This is because their units of observation often vary. This author proposes linking diverse datasets with geographic information systems (GIS), using spatial location as the key. The PIE framework can contribute to theoretical and methodological discussions in information behavior research. It also offers scholars and policymakers a way to empirically assess the contributions of information services.

Self-assessment of topic/task knowledge is a human metacognitive capacity that impacts information behavior, for example through selection of learning and search strategies. It is often used as a measure in experiments for evaluation of results and those measurements are taken to be generally reliable. We conducted a user study (n=40) to test this by constructing a concept-based topic knowledge representation for each participant and then comparing it with the participant judgment of their topic knowledge elicited with Likert-scale questions. The tasks were in the genomics domain and knowledge representations were constructed from the MeSH thesaurus terms that indexed relevant documents for five topics. The participants rated their familiarity with the topic, the anticipated task difficulty, the amount of learning gained during the task, and made other knowledge-related judgments associated with the task. Although there is considerable variability over individuals, the results provide evidence that these self-assessed topic knowledge measures are correlated in the expected way with the independently-constructed topic knowledge measure. We argue the results provide evidence for the general validity of topic knowledge self-assessment and discuss ways to further explore knowledge self-assessment and its reliability for prediction of individual knowledge levels.

Patients with kidney failure who receive hemodialysis must spend 12 hours per week in a clinic setting to stay alive. We conducted an ethnographic study in a dialysis clinic in a Midwestern state that included 51 hours of observation and in-depth interviews with 9 clinic patients. Using Chatman's--Theory of Life in the Round", we examined how staff and patients in the dialysis clinic exchanged information about the disease. Information exchanged in this world was oriented towards making illness and treatment tolerable. Through immersion, staff and patients demonstrated how to live on dialysis, often with the aid of escapism and gentle banter. They also developed a taken-for-granted worldview marked by psychological acceptance and a local, everyday focus. This worldview was supported by the establishment and repetition of routines that reinforced the taken-for-granted quality of dialysis. Informational routines in the clinic also helped to convey this worldview, while systematically informing patients about how to live on dialysis. Patients generally stepped outside of this information world only if they received a kidney transplant, experienced a new health crisis, or came to distrust their health care providers. Implications for information behavior theory and clinic-based information services are discussed.

Users increasingly rely on social Q&A sites to answer questions that are important to their everyday lives. Social Q&A differs significantly from library-based reference services in that there is no guarantee that the individuals answering questions have relevant expertise or are relying on authoritative sources. This raises an important research question: what factors influence users' trust in social Q&A? This paper seeks to determine the role that text and photo cues of expertise have on users' trust in answers in social Q&A. The results of an experiment with 241 subjects indicate that expertise cues in text lead to significantly higher trust among both experts and non-experts. However, expertise cues in photos increase trust among non-experts but do not increase trust among experts. These results indicate that both the expertise of the user and the expertise cues provided in the answer affect user trust in social Q&A.

This panel focuses on expanding concepts of health literacy by exploring how the acquisition and use of health information through the context of people's daily lives significantly enhances their understanding and implementation of both acute and chronic health treatment and management. Prevalent health literacy initiatives emphasize core information literacy skills and concerns by addressing issues such as readability, clarity in communication, and appropriate vetting of online health information sources; however, these measures do not address the intricate ways in which people interact with and use information when making decisions about their health. In this session, researchers working within a variety of cross-disciplinary arenas and contexts, including information science, communications, nursing, medicine, health services, and public health, will engage with the question of how information behavior-based studies can impart additional dimensions to an understanding of health literacy beyond basic literacy skills and information delivery. We argue that information behavior perspectives can enrich the conceptual base of health literacy, contributing a deeper understanding of people's engagement with and use of health information in the context of their lived experience with health conditions. The six panelists will provide insight into additional dimensions of experience relevant to health literacy, including how people identify and understand their information needs, how interpersonal sources are considered as health information, the value of experience-based or peer information, and how engagement in online communities, families, and social networks contributes to how health information is experienced, considered, evaluated, used, and applied in negotiating health and illness.