Assessing Information Needs in the Age of the Digital Consumer

<p>Aiming at ensuring that everyone obtains the rich rewards available in today's information-centred society, this book seeks to provide a systematic method for the understanding, appreciation and evaluation of information needs, which alone can guarantee the value of information to the consumer. Based on the insights gained from research projects involving hundreds of thousands of people, it sets out to provide a framework, firmly grounded in theory but nevertheless highly practical, for information needs analysis. The book is written both for librarians, publishers, archivists, records managers, journalists and other information professionals, to help them in their efforts to design improved systems and monitor the effectiveness of their services on an ongoing basis, and for individual information consumers, to enable them better to meet their own information needs in the expanding sphere of virtual information. </p> The authors, Introduction, 1 Why undertake information needs assessments?, 2 What are information needs?, 3 A framework for evaluating information needs, 4 The determinants of information needs and practices, 5 Collecting the data, 6 Information needs analysis: ensuring the effective information enfranchisement of the digital consumer, References, Index