25.2 CATEGORIES OF RESEARCH IN INFORMATION ACCESS

To organize the literature and provide a viewfinder, categories of research in information access were created. Research on information access is divided into three segments: users, access, and information. Each of these is discussed separately by looking at foundational research and inquiry. These three areas were identified using the basic question that initiated this review: How do people access information? In attempting to answer the question, an initial analysis revealed that researchers look at three separate issues: users, access, and information.

Users, both collectively and individually, engage in particular activities. The user plays a significant role in establishing and maintaining the problem situation. Various attributes and characteristics of users who want access to information are considered by researchers. Access is the second part of the research problem.

Access refers both to the technologies that provide access and to the factors that may enhance or limit access. Therefore, research in this area not only looks at technological capabilities but also at the impact of space, time, and culture.

Information is the goal of access, in the sense that information is what users want to access. What constitutes information and how information is constructed and stored creates the research foundation for this information access area.

Researchers studying users look at beliefs, behaviors, and needs. They attempt to describe user characteristics and variables important to information access. They examine ways to change users to create more efficient access. Researchers who study access look at technologies of access. They examine features related to mechanical technologies and social environments impacting user access. They may also study the system of information access, but from a system rather than user point of view. Information researchers study the characteristics and construction of information. They are interested in how information is represented, how the retrieval process is managed, and barriers to information access.

25.2.1 Users

Users initiate the information access process. Users can be students in a school library media center, engineers in a chemical corporation, agronomy professors on site in the field, doctors in their offices, or children at the zoo. Anyone looking for information is a user. There is a causal relationship between users and the other two pieces of the model. Without the initial problem, question, query, significant imbalance, or need, neither information nor a way to access it is necessary. Characteristics and issues related to users of information are essential to understanding information access. Research about users has generally focused in three areas:

• User studies

• Information seeking

• Information skills

User studies address such issues as different types of user groups, information needs of various people, and general characteristics of users that may impact information need. information-seeking research examines the cognitive processes and search strategies that individuals use to access information. It often looks at differences between search intermediaries and end users. Information seeking can be considered a subset of cognitive characteristics. The concept of information skills focuses on knowledge and processes users need to improve information access effectiveness. This area has models of information skills development and research on the search process as a learning strategy.

Access requires a user and a point of access. An access point could be a computer, a reference book, a phone directory, another person, a cage at the zoo, or any of a variety of other physical things. At some place in time, the user and the access point come together. An access point is a physical location. (Question: If a person accesses his or her own information, i.e., thinks about something, is there a physical access point? Are there other access instances where there is no way of construing physicalness?)

The access point is accompanied by physical factors that interact with the action of access. The point exists within near space: a work space, a library space, a classroom niche, a government waiting room, a kitchen with a telephone. This near space has physical, psychological, and social characteristics that influence access. The near space is surrounded by a room, a building, a facility, or a type of finite environment. The surrounding space is designed, developed, and maintained. It also interacts with characteristics of the user trying to access information. The space that contains the access point is located in a geographical relationship to the user. If the access point is a computer in the individual's bedroom, this is a close geographical relationship. If the access point is located at the university library, 50 miles away, this is a distant geographical relationship. Each of these factors has research and theory implications for information access in library and information centers.

Research in information access falls into three general areas: (1) research on the mechanical technologies of access points, such as on-line public access catalogs (OPACs), electronic mail (e-mail), on-line search services, and their associated social technologies, such as interface design and screen design; (2) research on the physical and social issues that impact the immediate use of an access point such as handicapped access, facilities design, and sign systems; and (3) research on larger issues that affect the use Of the access point, such as public policies for use and geographic availability. LIS research on access to information

is drawn from different theoretical backgrounds such as social and cognitive psychology, human factors, computer programming, and educational technology. Much of the research in this area is in the developmental stage for library and information centers.

Access is only as useful as the information that is accessed. In general, information is defined by LIS researchers in the broadest terms to include antelopes and books and computers and rocks (Buckland, 1991). As raw information, access is focused on the relationship between the individual and the information source. A child watching an antelope eating at the zoo could be considered to be accessing from an information center. The zoo is a repository of live natural history information. Another type of information is that which is constructed into different formats. Databases (see 24.9), semantic nets (24.7), indexing and cataloging, and expert systems (see 24.8) are all forms of information construction. Access to constructed information may be different than access to raw information. Information is also affected by the influence of public policies and cultural norms on what information is made available and to whom. Researchers, such as Dervin (1992), suggest that information should be considered subjective: a personal construction created by human observers.

Information is used, analyzed, and made available in four different contexts: (1) as basic content or reality, (2) as this reality constructed in large sets, (3) as filtered by political and social constraints, and (4) as constructed by the individual. Research on information encompasses a broad scope and complexity. It has technical and social implications. For example, does the content of information influence access to information? Does mathematics literature have an inherently different structure for searching and sorting than poetry? This chapter will focus on the organizational structures developed in LIS to sort, categorize, and aid in the retrieval of information.