Resident university students’ everyday-life information seeking behaviour in Pakistan

Introduction. This study seeks to investigate the everyday-life information seeking behaviour of postgraduate students living in the residence halls of the University of the Punjab, Lahore. Method. A critical incident technique, a qualitative research approach, was used in order to achieve its objectives. Face to face interviews of twenty postgraduate students, having a rural background, selected through purposive sampling, using a semi-structured interview approach were conducted. Analysis. The verbal data was organized and analysed using thematic analysis. The important data was coded and grouped for deriving themes. Results. The participants' situations were centred on health, socio-economic, cultural, technological, and legal issues. These students mainly relied on inter-personal information sources in order to resolve their everyday-life issues. The role of university libraries was non-existent in meeting the everyday-life information needs of these participants. Some participants suspected the quality and scope of information received from news and social media. These participants were mostly unsuccessful in accessing needed everyday-life information on time due to lack of information sources. Conclusions. The results have implications for both theory and practice. It extends the scope of the everyday-life information seeking model by adding a new dimension and provides insights into trans-national perspectives. If the everyday-life issues of resident postgraduate university students remained unresolved due to lack of information and institutional support, it might affect their academic achievement and research productivity. Therefore, the university administration should plan on-campus consultancy services within student affairs offices for supporting such students to overcome difficulties in light of their everyday-life information needs. The library staff should also design services to support those provided by the university administration.

Everyday Life Information Seeking Patterns of Resident Female University Students in Pakistan

Purpose: Everyday life information seeking (ELIS) is essential for the mastery of life and plays a central role in the daily problem-solving activities of all human beings. This study aimed to investigate the everyday life information seeking of female university students residing at hostels in Lahore, Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative research approach using a survey method was adopted to identify the dimensions of ELIS and to fill the paucity of research on the topic. Two-hundred and forty-eight female students living in various university and private hostels in Lahore, Pakistan, were surveyed, and the collected data was analyzed using Statistics Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. Findings: Results of the study revealed that hostel living expanded the social circle of students, as it offered exposure to diverse multicultural social groups. Female students living in hostels required information related to their academic needs, safety concerns, social life, and self-help issues. They relied mainly on mobiles phones, the internet, social media, and inter-personal relationships for everyday information. Cultural differences, natural hesitation, language barriers, time concerns, and difficulty in identifying reliable information were the primary obstacles in meeting everyday life information needs. Originality/value: The findings of this study can be used as a premise for developing interventions and information services for female students that allow them to live comfortably in a safe environment in hostels and achieve their educational goals. The study results may also provide useful insights for university administrations to establish libraries in hostels to better cater to their female residents’ information needs.

Diffusion of information behaviour theory into education for reference service

Introduction. This paper reports on part of a larger study, specifically on the information behaviour theories used in foundational reference and information services courses in North America. Method. Content analysis of syllabi, reading lists and textbooks from foundational reference courses was conducted. Analysis. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of documents was conducted to identify specific information behaviour theories. Results. The most mentioned information behaviour theories in reference courses are similar to those most mentioned in studies of information behaviour research, including Kuhlthau’s information search process and Savolainen’s everyday life information seeking. Conclusions. Students in courses that discuss information behaviour theories are being exposed to the most impactful information behaviour theories, but still only two-thirds of courses include them.

Everyday Life Information Needs of Adolescents

This literature review explores the Everyday Life Information-Seeking needs of adolescents. Adolescents are at a unique stage in their development and have needs that distinguish them from both younger children and adults. This review first defines Everyday Life Information-Seeking and adolescence. It then explores arguments that ELIS needs grow out of developmental needs. It describes several typologies of adolescents’ ELIS needs. Finally, it examines the ELIS needs of specific adolescent populations.

Perilaku Penemuan Informasi Mahasiswa Shopaholic tentang Fashion di Surabaya

Information about fashion is an activity that is intended to find information about fashion that you want to know. Information discovery activities are not only to fulfill the information needs but also to increase students' knowledge about fashion. In information discovery activities students can obtain information on the internet such as social media, websites, markets, and on television. But in the process of finding information there are still quite a lot of students who experience obstacles and constraints ranging from accessing to purchasing something. Regarding fashion, it is very pleasing to lifestyle, where fashion can be the identity, features, or differences of the individual's expression. Besides that, a person's lifestyle will draw attention to the situation and realize it or not will make a person have a hedonic nature or often called consumptive. This research uses descriptive quantitative. This study uses the Everyday Life Information Seeking Behavior theory by Reijo Savolainen (1995). The research location was conducted at the University in Surabaya, namely at Airlangga University, PERBANAS, Surabaya University, and Surabaya State University. The sampling method uses purposive sampling with a total of 100 respondents. The results of the study show the facts about students who find fashion information most often sought is clothing as much as 70% with an average duration of 1-2 hours at night. Besides that, the habit of meeting the desired information needs is accessing an idol figure and also viewing photos/videos on social media 82%. The second is shopaholic student information source preferences in finding information needed by students using smartphones to access Instagram social media. And information sources used to find information are 75% handpicked information sources. Related to problems in information discovery. Where shopaholic students who spent the information found 63%, related to the information obtained related to product/product information as much as 58%. The mode search information that was carried out was fulfilled by carrying out the activity of searching again by using the free and relevant source of information.Keywords: Information discovery behavior, students, fashion, lifestyle AbstrakPerilaku penemuan informasi fashion merupakan suatu kegiatan yang bertujuan untuk menemukan informasi tentang fashion yang ingin diketahui. Aktivitas penemuan informasi tersebut selain untuk memenuhi kebutuhan informasi juga dengan tujuan untuk menambah pengetahuan mahasiswa tentang fashion. Dalam aktivitas penemuan informasi mahasiswa bisa mendapatkan informasi di internet seperti media sosial, website, market place maupun di televisi. Namun dalam proses penemuan informasi masih cukup banyak mahasiswa yang mengalami hambatan dan kendala mulai dari pengaksesan sampai dengan pembelian barang. Berbicara tentang fashion erat kaitannya dengan gaya hidup, dimana fashion bisa menjadi identitas, ciri, atau gambaran atas ekspresi individu tersebut. Disamping itu, gaya hidup seseorang akan berpengaruh pada perilaku dan disadari atau tidak akan membuat seseorang memiliki sifat hedonis atau sering disebut konsumtif. Penelitian ini menggunakan metodologi kuantitatif deskriptif. Penelitian ini menggunakan teori Everyday Life Information Seeking Behaviour oleh Reijo Savolainen (1995). Lokasi penelitian yaitu dilakukan di empat Universitas di Surabaya, yaitu di Universitas Airlangga, PERBANAS, Universitas Surabaya, dan Universitas Negeri Surabaya. Metode pengambilan sampel menggunakan purposive sampling dengan jumlah 100 responden. Hasil dari penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kebiasaan mahasiswa dalam penemuan informasi fashion yang paling sering dicari yaitu pakaian sebanyak 70% dengan rata-rata durasi 1-2 jam pada malam hari. Disamping itukebiasaan dalam memenuhi kebutuhan informasi yang diinginkan yaitu mengakses sosok idola dan juga melihat foto/video di media sosial 82%. Yang kedua yaitu preferensi sumber informasi mahasiswa shopaholic dalan penemuan informasi mayoritas mahasiswa menggunakan smartphone, untuk mengakses media sosial instagram. Dan mayoritas sumber informasi yang digunakan untuk melakukan penemaun informasi ialah sumber informasi yang dipilih sendiri 75%. Yang ketiga terkait penyelesaian masalah dalam penemuan informasi. Dimana mahasiswa shopaholic yang mengalami kendala dalam penemuan informasi terdapat 63%, mayoritas bentuk kendala yang pernah dialami yaitu terkait informasi barang/produk sebanyak 58%. Hasil penelusuran informasi fashion yang dilakukan mayoritas terpenuhi dengan melakukan kegiatan pencarian ulang dengan menggunakan sumber informasi yang gratis dan relevan.Kata kunci : Perilaku penemuan informasi, mahasiswa, fashion, gaya hidup

Considering the local and the translocal

Purpose Institutional ethnography is a method of inquiry that brings attention to people’s everyday work while simultaneously highlighting broader sites of administration and governance that may be organising that work. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the integration of institutional ethnography in health information practice research represents an important shift in the way that Library and Information Science professionals and researchers study and understand these practices. Design/methodology/approach This paper first explores the key tenets and conceptual underpinnings of Dorothy Smith’s institutional ethnography, illuminating the importance of moving between translocal and the local contexts and identifying ruling relations. Drawing from a library and information science study that combined interviews and textual analyses to examine the social organisation of family caregivers’ health-related information work, the paper then explores the affordances of starting in the local particularities and then moving outwards to the translocal. Findings The paper concludes with an overall assessment of what institutional ethnography can contribute to investigations of health information practices. By pushing from the local to the translocal, institutional ethnography enables a questioning of existing library and information science conceptualisations of context and of reappraising the everyday-life information seeking work/non-work dichotomy. Ultimately, in considering both the local and the translocal, institutional ethnography casts a wider net on understanding individuals’ health information practices. Originality/value With only two retrieved studies that combine institutional ethnography with the study of health information practices, this paper offers health information practice researchers a new method of inquiry in which to reframe the application of methods used.