Information Needs
Information need is an individual or group's desire to locate and obtain information to satisfy a conscious or unconscious need. The ‘information’ and ‘need’ in ‘information need’ are an inseparable interconnection. Needs and interests call forth information. The objectives of studying information needs are:
- The explanation of observed phenomena of information use or expressed need;
- The prediction of instances of information uses;
- The control and thereby improvement of the utilization of information manipulation of essentials conditions.
Information needs are related to, but distinct from information requirements. An example is that a need is hunger; the requirement is food.
Read more about Information Needs: Background
Famous quotes containing the word information:
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)