Information encountering

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2. INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING
By
M.Yasin Khan
Roll # PLIF17E006
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3. CONTENTS
OVERVIEW
SKELETON OF INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING
WHO ENCOUNTER INFORMATION
WHERE IS INFORMATION ENCOUNTERED
WHAT INFORMATION IS ENCOUNTERED
INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING AND OTHER TYPES OF INFORMATION ACQUISITION
PRACTICAL IMPLICATION OF INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING
FUTURE RESEARCH
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
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4. OVERVIEW
• Information encountering is a memorable experience of an unexpected
discovery of useful or interesting information. Information encountering occurs
when one is looking for information relating to one topic and find information
relating to another one.
• Information Encountering is A form of Information acquisition that is not
planned or anticipated. It is characterized by users’ low involvement or no
involvement in looking for information that was acquired and by A low
expectation or no expectation that such Information will be acquired.
• Information encountering are also known as Accidental Discovery of
Information (ADI) or Incidental Information Acquisition. 4

5. SKELETON OF INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING
Following four element are the building blocks to understand the
concept of Information Encountering:
The information user who encounters the information
The environment where the information encountering occurred
The characteristics of the information encountered
The characteristics of the information needs that the information
encountering addresses
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6. SKELETON OF INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING
Info.
Encountering
Experience
Information user
(actions,
feelings,
thoughts)
Information
encountered
(problem related,
interest related
Information needs
current, past, future)
Environment
(paper,
electronic,
people)
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7. WHO ENCOUNTERS INFORMATION
Information users are those responsible for information encountering. Generally there are
the four tentative groups of information users according to their perceptions of information
encountering:
NON-ENCOUNTERERS: People for whom it is difficult to recall any information encountering
experience.
OCCASIONAL ENCOUNTERERS: People who occasionally encounter the information but do
not see in these events more than a lucky incident.
ENCOUNTERERS: People recognize that they often experiences but do not see a connection
b/w information encountering & other aspects of their information behavior.
SUPER ENCOUNTERERS: They encounter information on regular basis and perceive it as an
important element of their information acquisition. Super Encounterers not only encounter
information important to them, but also often encounter relevant to others.
•
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8. WHERE IS INFORMATION ENCOUNTERED
Information users encounter information in Libraries,
Book stores
On the internet
In contact with other people or social applications
Some other everyday environment such as grocery
store
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9. WHAT INFORMATION IS ENCOUNTERED
The encountered information can be of both that are problem related and interest
related:
• Interest related information users most likely have not tried to acquire before. This
information has potential use for user but they cannot put it to a specific use.
• Problem related information pertains to some specific user’s problem but not
problem that
the user was pursuing at the time when information was encountered. Examples are:
• CURRENT NEED: The students was conducting a literature search in the library and
looking for information related to a term paper topic. In the process of his search he
bumped into information related to some other research project that was also his
current need but not something he had perused at that time. 9

10. WHAT INFORMATION IS ENCOUNTERED (CONTINUED..)
• PAST NEED: The respondent encountered interesting information on eco-tourism in
South America that would have been very useful to close friend. Unfortunately the
friend has already completed the trip address by the encountered information.
• FUTURE NEED: The respondent was perusing her routine work related activity on
internet when by accident she found a web site about travel to Italy. She was going to
spend her next summer vacation in Italy and was planning to search for information
about Italy sometime in the future.
Generally the model of information behavior depict only one information problem or
information need, In contrast IE brings to our attention that the information behavior of
real life information users is a more complex phenomena. IE helps us identify the specific
experiences of jumping from one current problem to another current problem or from an
information need in time frame to an information need in another time frame.
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11. OVERVIEW OF THE INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK
DIMENSION CODING GROUP ELEMENTS
USER Action Informational mode, Non-informational mode
Feelings Before encountering, after encountering
Thoughts Before encountering, after encountering
ENVIRONMENT Physical and functional type
Type of medium
home, Internet, library, school, store
printed, people, Internet
INFORMATION Type of information
Type of use
Prior seeking
Interest, problem, Interest/problem
specific, general, shared, information-management
was sought, was not sought
PROBLEM Currency
Involvement
current, non-current
active, passive
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12. INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING AND OTHER TYPES OF
INFORMATION ACQUISITION
IE is type of information acquisition while information seeking
and browsing involve process oriented information acquisition.
Information encountering is an event or incident of information
acquisition that occurs at a specific moment in time. IE may
occurs during the process of information seeking or during the
process of browsing.
Information user often encounter information during routine
activities that are not necessarily intended by the users to be
information oriented. 12

13. PRACTICAL IMPLICATION OF INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING
In the field of library and information science and to develop holistic and detail
tools for modeling the information user behavior, the IE add additional flavor to
existing information behavior models. It is specific type of information acquisition
activity such as the information seeking and browsing.
Being the information manager by adhering the information encountering we know
why users do not behave rationally. Why they change the focus of their questions
during the reference interview and why they sometimes do not follow search
directions provided by the librarian.
• Information service providers should be aware of IE and the cross pollination among
users various problems and interest areas. Information professional should facilitate
and types of need that user hold and that user may need answered in parallel with
need s initially presented. 13

14. PRACTICAL IMPLICATION OF INFORMATION ENCOUNTERING
By adhering the information encountering the information
experts can make such a vibrant information system that would
help non-encounterers make better use of encountering.
To enhance the processing of encountered information
additional tools may be added to information system for
example Web Browsers may improve the capturing, formatting,
forwarding and organizing the encountered information.
There is the potential for inclusion of information encountering
within information literacy models to facilitate the information
need of users. 14

15. FUTURE RESEARCH
• To facilitate Information Encountering, web site design can be improve such as
hyperlinks are useful and what information is expected in these links.
• How Information Encountering relates to the cognitive styles and other
individual difference encounterers and super encounterers.
• Evaluation of Information encountering in the context of different environment.
Electronic and print base environments with regard to type of tools that may
promote encountering as well as the techniques users employ to organize
information that is encountered in those environment.
• Information Encountering on the organizational level in various information
environment require the special attention.
• (http://Porsche.gslis.utexas.edu/ie)
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16. CONCLUSION
The landscape of human information behavior (IB) literature encompasses many
models, theories and studies that are largely seeker-centric and/or focused on
information users who are external to the information provider.
Information Encountering is opportunistic acquisition of information where
during search for information on one topic, information users accidently come
across information related to some other topic of interest.
For understanding of non-encounterers and occasional encounterers, the experts
need to focused on multi-dimension of information encountering and aspect
where it can be utilized more effectively and efficiently.
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17. REFERENCES:
Erdelez, S (1995), Information encountering: An exploration beyond information
seeking. Unpublished dissertation, Syracuse university, Syracuse, New York.
Erdelez, S (1995), Information encountering: Its more than just Bumping into
Information.
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19. QUESTIONS
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