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Reviewed by:
  • Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services
  • Emily Marsh
Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services, 2nd ed., Carol Collier Kuhlthau, Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. 247 p. $40(ISBN 1-59158-094-3)

Marcia Bates' prophetic review of Carol Collier Kuhlthau's Seeking Meaning(first edition) stated plainly, "If we in this field draw on the full implications of Kuhlthau's ideas expressed here, the impact on our understanding of information seeking behavior, reference work, and bibliographic instruction will be profound." (Marcia Bates, review of Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services, by Carol Collier Kuhlthau, The Library Quarterly, 64, 1994, p. 473) In the decade separating the first edition from the second, it appears that the library and information science (LIS) field has embraced Kuhlthau's ideas. Consider the following:

  1. 1. Pettigrew and McKechnie's content analysis of 1,160 articles published in LIS journals of the mid-1990s revealed that Kuhlthau's theory was used commonly in LIS research and is part of an emerging "core" of theories within the discipline. (Karen E. Pettigrew and Lynne E.F. McKechnie, "The Use of Theory in Information Science Research," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology,52, 2001, pp. 62-73)

  2. 2. Kuhlthau's placement among the 10 most highly cited LIS faculty. (John M. Budd, "Scholarly Productivity of U.S. LIS Faculty: An Update," The Library Quarterly,70, 2000, pp. 230-45)

  3. 3. Finally, there are her national awards, most recently recognition for professional contributions to the LIS discipline by the Association for Library and Information Science Education, 2004.

These irrefutable indicators of Kuhlthau's stature as a researcher and clear signs of Seeking Meaning's statusas a seminal document beg the question: what is the need for a new edition?

The enthusiastic reception of the first edition was due in part to its identification of an integrated model of information seeking: the Information Search Process (ISP) model developed in "bottom-up" fashion from a series of qualitative studies. The studies tracked talented high school seniors as they went about the process of writing a paper. The issues under investigation were complex and broken down in various ways. The most important domains were those of time (the six stages of topic initiation, selection, exploration, formulation, collection, and presentation) and user behavior (thoughts, feelings, actions, strategies, and mood).

Kuhlthau's ISP model was unique and important because it identified multiple [End Page 440]facets of interest, arranged in a temporal order. From a complex and rich data set, she teased out discrete user domains—overtly behavioral, cognitive, and affective—and identified them as occurring in a predictable order as the user grapples with an information task. This six-step model has been used to structure user education programs, to inform reference services, and as a research methodology so that the user is treated as a being grounded in a complex interaction of time and (behavioral) space.

The new edition expands on the model, most importantly by describing additional user studies. Kuhlthau's re-assertion of the ISP model as being valid and robust is persuasive, because it is based upon an even larger body of research than that which formed the basis of the first edition. The studies she describes expand upon her original work by studying larger sample sizes of the same population (high school students), samples tracked over longer periods, and samples from workplace populations—attorneys and securities analysts. These new studies help to strengthen what was already a solid foundation of empirical support for Kuhlthau's model.

Two constructs within the ISP model, "The Uncertainty Principle" and the "Zone of Intervention" are Kuhlthau's lenses into user needs. Uncertainty can affect any user at any point in the information seeking process. Kuhlthau contends, however, that there is a distinct point at which a user is most prone to uncertainty—the exploration stage. After users move through the topic initiation and selection stages and begin to explore information systems and resources, they are likely to encounter conflicting and inconsistent information. A dip in confidence is common, because they do not yet have the...

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