On 27 October 2023, a lecture entitled 'Man-in-context' and the experience of information: the interdisciplinary dimension of information behaviour research was delivered by Dr ha. Monika Krakowska from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.
The lecture was divided by dr hab. Monika Krakowska into several parts. At the beginning, the aim of the presentation was presented, which was to introduce the participants to the issues of human information behaviour that occur in the context of, and result from, contemporary dynamically developed theoretical and empirical research and paradigm shifts in information science. Firstly, it has become important to develop research in a constructionist and constructivist paradigm, allowing the exploration of information behaviour in cognitive-social aspects, highlighting the role of experience and the social construction of knowledge, cognitive-affective aspects, and social aspects. Secondly, the multidimensional and multi-paradigmatic approach to analysing human information behaviour has contributed to going beyond the circle of professional, vocational settings (e.g. scientists, engineers) and exploring activity in different information spaces, embodied information practices, information behaviour in everyday life, activity during a person's relationship with information during leisure activities, hobbies, crisis states, etc.
The next part of the lecture was devoted to explaining what information behaviour is, understood as an overarching concept for human activities in relation to information, and being a sub-discipline of informatology, in which a number of concepts and models of information causation have already been developed, and the theoretical and empirical foundations of information behaviour have been established and shaped. Subsequently, concepts have been distinguished between: (a) information behaviour, which refers to the identification of information needs and the subsequent acquisition, search for, management and use of information, and represents the totality of human activities, active, passive, intuitive, non-targeted as well as incidental in relation to information, information sources and channels; (b) information practices, which, often synonymous with information behaviour, are understood as human activities situated in a social context, often undertaken as a matter of habit through the routine monitoring of socially and culturally embedded activities in everyday life, and emphasise the role of the competent, rational and committed human being in making sense of a variety of activities and behaviours; (c) information experience, which is related to interdisciplinary approaches (e.g. evolutionary, affective, cognitive, social, biological, as well as ecological) and is concerned with the holistic optics of ways of subjectively experiencing, feeling, sensing information acquisition, processing, using, exploiting, sharing information and thus creating new knowledge; (d) information culture, which can be explained as a transdisciplinary concept, closely related to information processes and behaviour, especially with regard to feeling and relating to information, constituted by information practices, socially, through a set of developed values, attitudes, norms and information skills, which concern activities that are part of conscious and specified and responsible information behaviour, leading to the achievement of knowledge and wisdom.
In the next part of the lecture, the speaker briefly presented a categorisation of information behaviour, which, through overarching activities such as information acquisition or use, can manifest itself through a number of different sub-categories of information activities, such as routine information acquisition, information avoidance, information destruction, information selection or storage, as well as its dissemination or decision-making. She also highlighted selected key determinants of information behaviour, which are also their context and determine human activities, which included evolutionary, cognitive, affective factors and information barriers, among others. Context has also become an important issue, which is usually multidimensional, variously conceived (e.g. as a reservoir, situation, circumstance, information space) and should be understood through its attributes, which include time, space, place, purpose, task, situation, processes, human agency, information behaviour, as well as other people. Explaining the intricacies of information behaviour and experience is condensed by discussing selected dimensions that provide an interdisciplinary basis for exploring and understanding these processes. The dimensions presented are: (a) evolutionary, which represents the imperative to adapt to the changing conditions and context in which one experiences, senses information; (b) embodied, which relates to the body as a cognitive element through which the individual makes sense of, and shapes actions based on, the mental representations he or she builds from experience and knowledge; (c) cognitive, which is related to the interpretation of the external world, the reception of various stimuli coming from the environment in which the individual functions, as well as the processes of thinking, reasoning, analysing, inferring and planning actions, problem solving; (d) affective, concerning the role of emotions, feelings, moods and motivations in the experience of information; (e) social, which was embedded in the social framework of norms, values, interpersonal relationships, information activities and practices, conscious experience of information, social learning.
At the end of the lecture, relevant areas of research on users' information behaviour that are possible for librarians to analyse were proposed, which included calls for research undertaken on recognising the diversity of information behaviour among library users, specific information spaces, as well as affective and social determinants of the use of resources (traditional and digital) in libraries, research on the epistemic culture that is the library, and normative ways of experiencing information in small communities. It also attempts to address how information behaviour and experience and research in this area can be correlated with research on misinformation and fake news.