Learning the Internet and the structure of information behavior

✍ Scribed by Nahl, Diane

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 62 KB
• Volume: 49
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-8231
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(1998)49:11<1017::aid-asi8>3.0.co;2-z

✦ Synopsis

loadable, copyable, and printable files. Nicholas and Fenton (1996) advocate creating information tools and strategies to help users sift through and evaluate the glut of information they can now directly access, including developing procedures for identifying unreliable and redundant information content.

According to some estimates, only 5% of the U.S. population are online (Nicholas & Fenton, 1997, p. 31), despite the fact that two-thirds of adults in a 1990 national poll expressed interest in becoming online users . There is no doubt great variability in these percentages across various sub-populations. Since the Internet explosion is merely 4 to 5 years old, research studies have barely begun to report data on Internet users, the latest indicating a 20% penetration among U.S. adults, amounting to 52 million current users (see ''etrg.cyberdialogue.com,'' 1997).

The Survey Approach: Characteristics of User-Distributions

Lazinger, review studies published since 1992, including six studies on information professionals, three studies on other population groups, and nine studies on faculty and student users. In general, these studies of academic Internet users reveal the following features:

1. In 1993, only 10% of faculty used the Internet. 2) By 1995, 39% of faculty considered themselves users of networked information technologies. 3) In areas such as computers, communication, and information science, 75% of faculty are active users. 4) Forty-seven percent of community-college faculty report subscribing to listservs.