Assessing Information Needs: Tools, Techniques and Concepts for the Internet Age (2nd ed.)

Citation

Butdisuwan, S. (2001), "Assessing Information Needs: Tools, Techniques and Concepts for the Internet Age (2nd ed.)", The Electronic Library, Vol. 19 No. 6, pp. 443-444. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2001.19.6.443.2

Information need assessment is a major task for all librarians and information services if they want to survive and get recognized. Information need assessment is a means of providing right information to right user at a right time in a cost‐effective way. Unfortunately, the information needs assessments have been neglected by information professionals. They may not know how to conduct information need assessments or they may have insufficient knowledge of doing so. If it is so, this book has the answer, especially for conducting information needs assessments in the Internet age.

It is known that “Aslib Know How guides” is a series prepared by practitioners who are experts in the fields. The guides offer a “how to” approach based on good practice which has been proved to work. With this regard, this book is a “how to” guide written by an expert in the area. Nicholas is head of the Department of Information Science, City University, UK and also director of the Internet Studies Research Group. Information need analysis is one of his areas of expertise. The content of the book is based on the findings of his research projects over a period of more than 20 years. Due to the fact that this book is a second edition, more practical guides and examples from his recent research projects regarding information needs assessments have been added.

The book is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is an introduction of how this book is developed. The second chapter explains why information needs assessments need to be undertaken. The third chapter explains what information needs are, and how they are different from information wants, information demands, and information use. In this chapter, a new term I‐Player is introduced. Chapter four offers a framework for evaluating information needs. A total of 11 characteristics of information need including subject, function, nature, intellectual level, viewpoint, quantity, quality/authority, date/currency, speed of delivery, place of publication/origin, and processing and packaging, are described. Chapter five displays ten key factors involved in the meeting of information need such as the kind of job/occupation, country/culture, personality, awareness/training, gender, age, time, access, resources/cost, and overload. Chapter six provides data collection methods. What is interesting is that attractions and problems of each method are also discussed. New methods such as “web log analysis” are introduced. Chapter seven, the final chapter, is a discussion about the information future especially in the Internet era where information needs assessment is even more crucial and needs to be emphasized by information professionals.

In sum, this book is a practical and useful guide for librarians, students, researchers, and information professionals who want to conduct information needs assessments. It is an easy reading book and is worth having.