Exploring the Contexts of Information Behaviour: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Research on Information Needs, Seeking and Using in Different Contexts, Sheffield 1998

This is both literally and metaphorically a piece of heavyweight work, with over 40 conference papers occupying more than 600 pages of dense text. It is the report of a major conference held in Sheffield which is based on the view that human information behaviour is increasingly being seen as a well founded sub‐discipline in information science “where researchers report the use of models and theoretical frameworks from institutional theory, information science, phenomenography and other fields.” Apart from the keynote and plenary papers, the other papers are loosely grouped into the themes of theory; health sciences; everyday life; work environment; the organization of information in context; information systems perspective.

It is a work which is hard going and takes no prisoners, assuming a confident and competent academic audience. Those who stumble at such concepts as the hermeneutic circle will find it as a gatekeeper on page one. Once past that the reader can gorge on such papers as, “When essence becomes function: post‐structuralist implications for an ecological theory of organisational classification systems”. Wilson himself presents a short but characteristically shrewd paper on uncertainty, although his is only one of a very small handful of British papers from a conference dominated by Scandinavia and the USA. The theoretical pieces, which cover a whole variety of philosophical approaches, are paralleled by case studies, which cover a variety of information seeking groups. The roles of consumers or information providers range from community nurses and oncologists to journalists, school governors and business school students. The authors are eclectically international and either write very well or have been well edited, although the approaches and theories described are rarely less than demanding and most practicioners will perhaps find the case studies the most accessible entry to the book.

A recurring theme is the waywardness of users, who will not fit into the convenient pigeonholes desired by researchers. This is neatly described by Green and Davenport:

In the course of this research it has become increasingly evident that media habits are messy, highly context specific and individualised. We can therefore merely ruefully attempt to plot some of the habits, inclinations and styles of use particular to those [users], with the full knowledge that the specificity of this enterprise negates any attempt to generalise about our findings. Paradoxically we deconstruct our own critical position as we construct it.

Practitioners will all too readily empathise with the messy habits of users and this was clearly not the sort of conference where hard‐headed practical researchers discovered user‐proof practical solutions to the everyday irritants of professional life. But the book is worth dipping into if not reading from cover to cover. Apart from the intrinsic interest of at least some of the papers, it is a near perfect example of why we need pure theoretical research which ultimately informs everyday practice.