Everyday Information Practices: A Social Phenomenological Perspective

Reijo Savolainen

Jan 2008 · Scarecrow Press

About this ebook

In general, information practices are viewed as tools that people use to further their everyday projects. Essentially, people's information practices draw on their stocks of knowledge that form the habitual starting point of information seeking, use, and sharing. To judge the value of information available in external sources like newspapers and the Internet, people construct information source horizons. They set information sources in order of preference and suggest information seeking paths, such as "first check the net, then visit the library."

Everyday Information Practices draws on interviews with environmental activists and unemployed people during 2005 and 2006, exploring the practices of information seeking by focusing on the ways in which the participants monitored everyday events and sought information to solve specific problems. The book shows that everyday information seeking practices tend to be oriented by the principle of "good enough." Overall, the role of routines and habits is more significant than has earlier been assumed. Thus, everyday information seeking practices tend to change quite slowly.

About the author

Reijo Savolainen is Professor at the Department of Information Studies, University of Tampere, Finland.