Project INISS is the first major investigation of the information needs of social services staff in this country. This paper describes the origins of the project, the method employed in the first phase of the study, some of the findings, and implications for information services in these...

The previous reports in this series described the data collection phases of Project INISS, in which structured observation and interviewing were the basic methods used. When this work was completed the Project moved into its ‘action’ phase, in which a number of innovations in information...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to respond to Bawden's review of Wilson's 1981 paper, “On user studies and information needs”. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reflects on the context of the original paper, and on subsequent developments. Findings – The paper comments on...

There is some confusion in the literature with regard to the use of the terms ‘permuted’, ‘rotated’, ‘cycled’.

Apart from information retrieval there is virtually no other area of information science that has occasioned as much research effort and writing as ‘user studies’. Within user studies the investigation of ‘information needs’ has been the subject of much debate and no little confusion....

This paper presents an outline of models of information seeking and other aspects of information behaviour, showing the relationship between communication and information behaviour in general with information seeking and information searching in information retrieval systems. It is suggested...

Business process re‐engineering (or redesign) has achieved mixed results in business and industry but it offers an approach to thinking about the future of academic libraries in the digital age that is worth considering. This paper outlines the forces that are currently affecting academic...