Information behaviour illustrated.

Introduction. Building upon an ongoing, arts-informed, visual research project about the nature of information, an existing set of original drawings of information were examined for insights into information behaviour. The study explored the questions: What can drawings of information suggest about information behaviour? What role can images of this kind play in information behaviour research? Method. The draw-and-write technique was used. Research participants were asked to draw a response to the question What is information? on one side of a 4" by 4" piece of paper and to complete the phrase Information is… in words, on the back side. 293 drawings, coined iSquares, were collected. Analysis. Analysis occurred in multiple stages and focused on the drawings. First, an iSquare of relevance to information behaviour was operationalized as one that contained a whole or partial human being. 126 iSquares qualified and were recast as information behaviour squares, or ibSquares. Then, thematic analysis was performed on the ibSquares in the light of the aforementioned research questions and the major concepts in information behaviour. Results. Drawings of information frequently illustrate information behaviour. The most common visual themes were: the hands, the brain, a person thinking, an individual in a context, a twosome in information exchange and an information-rich social world. The themes embody central tenets of information behaviour. Conclusions. TA limitation is the difficulty of discerning specific types of information activity in the drawings. Otherwise, the ibSquares provide an accessible, fresh perspective on information behaviour research and pedagogy, and expand the visual vocabulary of information behaviour beyond models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]