The human being and her behavior is complex. Research has shown serendipity and chance to play a great part in the scientific research praxis, still the complexity of human information retrieval is not fully acknowledged in modern libraries. This master thesis compares two different worldviews; the mechanistic and the organic. This in order to understand why information seeking today is increasingly linear when human information behavior is not. The way people believe the world to work reflects on how libraries and information seeking work. The mechanistic worldview, comparing the world to a machine, is rooted in humanity since the seventeenth century and is still shaping our world and institutions. Today databases and linear searches are pushing physical books off shelves to make room for computers and searching on limiting linear mechanical terms instead of complex human ones. This pattern often occurs without adequate questioning and online information is argued to be even more available to patrons than the physical library.  This thesis uses complexity theory and philosophical method to broaden perspectives and question linear searches in scientific information retrieval. It aims to highlight the importance of complex information retrieval and physical browsing for scientific innovation and creativity. Erdelez's original information encountering method was used to obtain source material for philosophical analysis. Philosophical method and complexity theory is used throughout the text to analyze the linear worldview leading up to a joint argumentative summary at the end of every chapter bringing the text forward.  The thesis contains a field study with semi-structured interviews with librarians at the Picture Collection, New York Public Library. This highlights the value of physical browsing through the strong criticism that arose from patrons when the library wanted to archive the unique and browsable research collection.  The result of the thesis argues that the linear technological development in libraries with less physical collections, librarian encounters, passive information gathering and random information paths without underlying commercial drivers create more like-mindedness instead of innovation. This significantly reducing the possibility of interdisciplinary discoveries. A technical development that at an alarming rate shifts information from being sought by people, to people being sought by information.  This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

My research illustrates new school librarians’ information practices by studying their critical examination of information and information seeking and how their workplace conditions impact their work situation in terms of the prerequisites for information and knowledge sharing. Interviews with ten new school librarians were conducted and recorded. The transcriptions were analyzed through qualitative thematic analysis where models of information seeking, organizational culture and information culture were used in order to concretize the social interplay of the information practices. The new school librarians used everyday life information seeking more than traditional search strategies. All of the participants expressed that their school did not prioritize media and literacy (MIL) work or that they did not prioritize it enough. All of the participants cooperated with other librarians both in person and through digital networks, hence the epithet herd animals. They conveyed that they too make source criticism mistakes and that transparency is part of source confidence. Eight participants described information seeking problems, such as pay walls and information overload. The professors’ information packed work is an interaction barrier for the new school librarians. The introductions at the schools pave the ground for information sharing. Schools are naturally hierarchical and market oriented. A relation based information culture benefits the school library’s inclusion. Reading is prioritized over MIL at the schools. This relates to the perception that a librarian only work with books, which can be changed through a well-developed cooperation between professors and librarians, active work from the librarians and the right resources for MIL work. Therefore the participants who worked at smaller schools and/or schools with a clan culture had a better chance to work with MIL. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

This study involved a qualitative investigation of consulting engineers' information needs and information-seeking behaviour within the context of their project-related work roles and tasks. The research design includes a study of various information behaviour models, a systematic review of the subject literature and the exploration of relevant qualitative research methods. Data was collected through time-line interviews. The findings show how consulting engineers' work roles and tasks determine their information needs during various engineering project stages. These factors also determine the use of various sources during information seeking. Consulting engineers use a variety of information sources but rely mainly on interpersonal communication to gather information. Digital cameras are used by consulting engineers to record progress in a project. They also use Internet technologies such as email and FTP sites to communicate project related information. Recommendations were put forward for the development of an Internet-based information service for consulting engineers. / Information science / M.Inf.

Access and use of information facilitate the improvement of agriculture in rural areas. It is therefore important to ensure that adequate and appropriate information flows to the rural areas, and that farmers are able to utilise it. This study investigated the access and use of poultry management information in three rural districts of Tanzania, namely Iringa Rural, Morogoro Rural and Mvomero. The survey method, supplemented by methodological triangulation, was used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 360 poultry farmers in the selected rural communities. Sixteen focus group discussions were conducted, in which 160 farmers participated. Twenty-two information providers were interviewed. The SPSS® software was used to analyse quantitative data, while qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. The findings indicated that poultry farmers needed information on poultry disease control, poultry protection, shelter for poultry and poultry production. There was very low identification and prioritisation of farmers’ information needs by the information providers. Farmers accessed information that had a direct impact and was deemed relevant to their farming activities. It was revealed that farmers accessed information mainly from interpersonal sources. Likewise, farmers preferred interpersonal and informal sources to formal sources of information. The extension officers were considered to be the most effective information source, followed by family, friends, and neighbours. Various factors, such as lack of awareness, unavailability of extension officers and poor infrastructure, influenced access and use of poultry management information. It was concluded that most of the information providers were not aware of the farmers’ information needs, and as a result they were not in a position to disseminate relevant information. In addition, farmers were used to an oral culture, which means that they would probably continue to depend on interpersonal sources of information, regardless of the availability of formal channels and modern sources. The study recommended several measures, including the use of multiple sources of information and delivery of information in a variety of formats, in order to accommodate various categories of farmers. The study also suggested some areas for further research. Furthermore, a model for effective dissemination of poultry management information in rural areas was proposed. / Information Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science)

Diese kumulative Dissertation untersucht die Rolle von Informationen und Finanzkompetenz im deutschen Crowdinvesting-Markt. Die erste Studie erforscht den Zusammenhang zwischen dem Umfang der von Start-Ups auf Companisto veröffentlichen Informationen und dem Investitionsverhalten von Crowdinvestoren auf Basis proprietärer Nutzer-level Companisto-Daten. Meine Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass (unerfahrene) private Investoren, im Gegensatz zu institutionellen Investoren, auch „weiche“ Informationen im Rahmen ihrer Investitionsentscheidungen berücksichtigen. Meine zweite Studie untersucht das tatsächliche Informationsverhalten von Crowdinvestoren im Vorfeld von Investitionen auf Basis von Nutzer-level Google Analytics-Daten. Meine Ergebnisse suggerieren, dass Investoren einen Großteil der von Start-ups bereitgestellten Informationen im Vorfeld von Investitionen ignorieren. Darüber hinaus zeige ich auf, dass das Informationsverhalten von Investoren mit den demografischen Merkmalen, der Crowdinvesting-Erfahrung und den (durchschnittlichen) Investitionsbeträgen von Investoren zusammenhängt. Meine Ergebnisse deuten zudem darauf hin, dass Investoren beim Vorliegen potentieller Indikatoren für die Qualität eines Start-ups bzw. bei weniger riskanten Investitionen, weniger Information akquirieren. In meiner dritten Studie, welche ich gemeinsam mit Joachim Gassen durchführe, untersuche ich den kausalen Effekt einer Online-Finanzschulung auf das Informations- und Investitionsverhalten von Crowdinvestoren im Rahmen eines Feldexperiments auf Companisto. Während das Experiment noch nicht abgeschlossen ist, motiviert der in dieser Dissertation enthaltene Zwischenbericht die zugrundeliegende Forschungsfrage und beschreibt das Forschungsdesign. Die vorläufigen Ergebnisse zeigen auf, dass Crowdinvestoren im Vergleich zu repräsentativen Stichproben der Gesamtpopulation, welche vergleichbaren Studien zugrunde liegen, ein signifikant höheres Maß an finanzieller Grundkompetenz aufweisen. / This cumulative Ph.D. thesis investigates the role of information and financial literacy in the German crowdinvesting market. Using proprietary investor-level data from Companisto, one of the largest German crowdinvesting portals, the first paper explores how the magnitude of start-ups’ disclosures on Companisto is associated with crowdinvestors’ investment behavior. My findings suggest that the investment decisions by both retail and institutional crowdinvestors are positively associated with the magnitude of start-ups’ voluntary disclosures. However, while start-ups’ ‘soft’ disclosures seem to play a role in the decision-making of (inexperienced) retail investors, they appear to be irrelevant for the investment decisions of institutional investors. My second thesis paper uses investor-level Google Analytics data to explore investors’ actual information acquisition prior to investing. My results indicate that crowdinvestors tend to neglect a substantial fraction of start-ups’ disclosures before investing. Moreover, I show that investors’ information acquisition varies with their demographics, their level of crowdinvesting experience as well as their (average) investment amounts. My findings further suggest that investors acquire less information in the presence of potential signals of start-up quality and (thus) in cases where the investment appears to be less risky. In my third paper, which is co-authored by Joachim Gassen, I study the causal effect of online financial training on crowdinvestors’ information and investment behavior by conducting a field experiment on Companisto. While the experiment is still ongoing, the interim report included in my thesis motivates the overall research question and explains the research design. Our preliminary results indicate that, compared to survey samples representative for the overall population, crowdinvestors exhibit a significantly higher level of ‘basic’ financial literacy.

本研究主要是探討消費者對「無形服務」的外部資訊搜尋行為。根據文獻回顧，將影響外部資訊搜尋的決定因素分為四類：成本效益因素（預期搜尋利益、時間壓力及財務壓力）、消費者心理層面因素（涉入程度及知覺風險）、中介層面因素（消費者知識經驗）以及人口統計變項（性別、年齡、教育程度及所得水準）來分析與外部資訊搜尋行為之間的關係。而研究標的則選擇婚紗攝影業，乃因婚紗攝影在每個人的一生中具有其重要含意，加上產品屬較高價位，故消費者在決定選購之前，會有較明顯的資訊搜尋行為。 本研究採郵寄問卷的方式來搜集樣本，並以複迴歸分析、因徑分析、雙因子變異數分析、及對比檢定來進行統計分析。盼能藉此研究一方面提供服務業一個消費者行為的分析架構，以助其擬定較佳的行銷策略；另一方面希望將「有形產品」的消費者資訊搜尋行為研究延伸至「無形服務」，並與過去在「有形產品」方面的研究結果做一比較，以供未來學術研究參考。 而實證結果發現，心理層面的因素包括消費者涉入程度及消費者知覺風險對外部資訊搜尋行為的解釋力最高。且各層面外部資訊搜尋決定因素與「主觀」的資訊搜尋行為之間的關連性與解釋能力較「客觀」的資訊搜尋行為來得強。此外，雖然以往文獻中所提的資訊搜尋決定因素在本研究中各層面逐一檢定時顯著性多半獲得支持，但合併檢驗時，在客觀資訊搜尋行為方面，只有預期利益、消費者涉入程度兩者呈顯著；在主觀資訊搜尋行為方面則僅有涉入程度及知識經驗呈顯著，可見決定消費者對無形服務的資訊搜尋行為決定因素只有關鍵的幾項，並非所有變數均為決定因素。 在中介層面變項－消費者知識經驗的檢定方面，本研究結果支持了「消費者知識經驗」是其涉入程度與主觀外部資訊搜尋努力程度的中介變項，亦即消費者的涉入程度是透過其消費者知識經驗來影響其主觀外部資訊搜尋努力程度之高低。 而在自變數間交互作用的分析方面，消費者涉入程度與知覺風險具加乘效果，亦即涉入程度高且知覺風險高的消費者其外部資訊搜尋行為會較其他消費者來得多。此外，本研究亦證明了高涉入的消費者其主觀外部搜尋行為與其知識經驗之間的關係為倒Ｕ型。 / This thesis examines the determinants of consumer information search forintangible goods.The emperical model includes such factors that influence the consumer external search behavior: perceiced benefits, time cost, financial cost, invlovement, perceiced risk, knowledge, age, gender,and income. The results find that the main determinant factor are involvement and perceived benefit.

研究生學習主要目的為完成課堂作業，準備課程討論、講習、研討會，或蒐集資料以供撰寫論文研究之需求，其次，體育領域研究生對於「增加體育專業能力」和「職場專業延伸」方面的需求也佔重要比例。為了達成上述目的，研究生會有需要到圖書館使用館藏服務以滿足任務需求。而圖書館所提供的館藏服務包含：圖書、期刊、電子書、電子期刊、資料庫與視聽資料等。本研究利用訪談法針對「體育研究生對館藏服務滿意度」進行評鑑指標的建構與修訂，以國立體育大學研究生進行問卷調查，評估其對館藏服務的重要性與滿意度。 本研究的研究目的有四點：(一) 探討體育研究生資訊需求與資訊尋求行為。(二)探討體育研究生館藏使用現況與支援資訊需求之情形。(三)探討體育研究生實體館藏與電子館藏使用現況與滿意度。(四)從體育研究生對館藏使用重要性與滿意度之落差，針對不滿意地方，提供改善館藏之參考。 為獲得研究結果，本研究透過訪談法具體建構出三個評鑑構面、23個指標為滿意度問卷，做為體育研究生對圖書館館藏服務滿意度的評鑑工具。本問卷對國立體育大學全體研究生實際發放問卷調查，獲得以下結論：(一) 體育研究生來自多元的背景特質。(二) 體育研究生資訊需求以課業需要、撰寫論文為主；體育研究生最常使用的館藏服務是圖書借閱。(三) 體育研究生館藏使用是電子期刊、資料庫及圖書。(四) 體育研究生需要的支援是方便的校外連線及便利的網站設計。(五) 體育大學研究生對圖書館滿意度低。(六) 體育研究生對圖書館館藏有高度期待。 針對所獲得的研究結果，本研究也提出幾點建議：(一) 可藉由調整西文電子期刊訂購類別，以及要求跨資料庫整合平台的廠商改進搜尋資料的正確性和精準度，及擴充免費電子資源的範圍，以解決西文電子期刊不足的問題，。(二) 圖書館最需要改進的館藏服務為電子資源的全文提供，和電子資源網站取得全文的易用性。(三) 圖書資源應增加新穎性與多元性，請老師介入推荐圖書，提供新穎及符合研究生需求的最新圖書資源。(四) 依使用需求來改善圖書館檢索系的使用者介面。(五) 建置有彈性的教育訓練課程。 / A graduate student’s major task is to study for completion of course works, for preparations during graduate programs, workshops and seminars, and for data collection and technique for research papers written requirements. Moreover, the following two requirements are also accounted for a significant proportion to a graduate student who concentrates on the field of sport. The first one is how to increase the physical professional competence. And the second one is how to extend the professional career. To achieve the purposes mentioned above, graduate students will need to use library collections and services to meet the study requirements. And these library collections and services include books, journals, e-books, e-journals, databases, audio-visual materials, and so on. In this study, the interview survey is used to build the evaluation crtirea and modification for the sport graduate student’s satisfaction on the library collections and services. The process is firstable to interview and design a questionnaire for the National Taiwan Sport University (NTSU) graduate students. And then, it is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and summarize the importance and satisfaction of the library collections and services from the sport graduate students. There are four purposes in this study. The first is to investigate the information needs and information-seeking behavior of sport graduate students. The second is to probe the library usage status and support information needs of sport graduate students. The third is to understand the needs and desires of physical collections and electronic holdings using the current situation and satisfaction by sport graduate students in the NTSU library. The fourth is to come up with an improvement plan for the library collections and services on the subject matter of sport research based on the results of interview survey highlighted importence gap and satisfaction gap usage by the sport graduate students. In order to attain the research results, a survey questionnaire has formed based on the methodology of interview survey to evaluate sport graduate students concerning library satisfaction, use, and importence. The design of questionnaire has considered three facets that include collection content, collection service and collection application value. And the questionnaire consisted of twenty three indicators to survey totally service satisfaction. The surveys are sent to all NTSU graduate students. Results are as shown below. A. Sport graduate students have diverse background. B. Information needs required from sport graduate students are mainly for completing course assignments and for writing papers. The most commonly used item of library collection service is to borrow books. C. The top priorities of library collection used by sport graduate students are in order of e-journal, database, and book. D. The most concerns of the assistance from library service required by sport graduate students are convenience of campus computer network connectivety and suitable design of website page. E. About 40% of sport graduate students have low satisfaction on the library collection. F. Sport graduate students have high expectations of library collection. According to the research resuls, several suggestions are made to improve the library collection and service on the subject matter of sport research. They are as shown below. A. Adjust purchased categories of west e-journals, and request the electronic resources meta-search system provider to improve the correctness and the accuracy of the keyword search and expand free e-journal repositories to resolve the shortage issue of west e-journals. B. The capability and usability of full-text download from electronic resources needs to be improved right away. C. Request teaching professors to joint the library collection acquistion committee and to provide their review comments and suggestions, make sure the collections always keep up with the sport graduate students’ needs as much as possible. D. The user interface of library search system needs to be improved to comply with the requirements of usability. E. The library instruction shall be adaptive to all fields of departments and schools.

Increasingly abundant access to data and cheaper display technology costs are creating an exciting opportunity to create new information awareness tools that can present information calmly through peripheral and ambient interfaces. These tools offer the potential to help people better manage their attention and to avoid information overload. Different people, however, have distinct information needs, and customizing these systems is often difficult. Existing interfaces typically provide too coarse or too fine a granularity of customization, resulting in tools that are too rigid or too difficult to configure. We present an extensively customizable information awareness system, The Buzz, that supports end users, tinkerers, and developers at using, modifying, creating, and sharing powerful and flexible customizations. These customizations are powerful in the sense that the user can control abstract behaviors of the system, and flexible in the sense that the complexity of the customization can vary with the power needed to express it. We further chart the broader information awareness customization space through the lens of existing customizable information tools. Through this analysis, we show that this system provides more extensive customization capabilities than other customizable awareness applications, without requiring significant programming.

Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / South Africa’s ten year old democracy puts great emphasis on being a participatory government, where citizens are able to engage with the policy and legislative process. An important aspect of this is the role played by Parliament which is not only the place where citizens are able to make their voices heard, but is also an important mechanism in keeping the government in line with the views and needs of the “people”. Its role of oversight (of the government departments) is a critical one in keeping the democracy intact, and an important part of this is their ability to access and use information from a wide range of sources. The purpose of this assignment was to consider the current use of information in Parliament and identify the flaws in the management and use of information by Parliamentary Committees. A number of questions are posed, questioning whether the current management and use of information allows Parliamentary Committees to fulfill their obligations in terms of the Constitution. In exploring these questions I have provided background to the role that NGOs have played in the past in South Africa, with specific reference to their relationship to Parliament/government and their expertise in the area of sustainable development. I have explained the role of Parliament (and more specifically the Parliamentary Committees in South Africa), as envisaged in the Constitution, as well as the problems facing Parliament in fulfilling these roles. I also indicated the ways in which civil society organizations could assist Parliament in fulfilling its role as effectively as possible. After considering the various theories of information and knowledge management a model was built on which the current information behaviors of Parliamentarians, specifically with regard to their work in the Committees, could be evaluated. Various key problems were identified and elaborated on. A strategy was outlined to address some of these problems.

This study involved a qualitative investigation of consulting engineers' information needs and information-seeking behaviour within the context of their project-related work roles and tasks. The research design includes a study of various information behaviour models, a systematic review of the subject literature and the exploration of relevant qualitative research methods. Data was collected through time-line interviews. The findings show how consulting engineers' work roles and tasks determine their information needs during various engineering project stages. These factors also determine the use of various sources during information seeking. Consulting engineers use a variety of information sources but rely mainly on interpersonal communication to gather information. Digital cameras are used by consulting engineers to record progress in a project. They also use Internet technologies such as email and FTP sites to communicate project related information. Recommendations were put forward for the development of an Internet-based information service for consulting engineers. / Information science / M.Inf.