Information needs

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The concept Information need is seldom, if ever, mentioned in the general literature about needs, but is a common term in the literature of information science. According to Hjørland (1997) it is closely related to the concept of relevance: If something is relevant for a person in relation to a given task, we might say that the person need the information for that task.

It is often understood as an individual or group's desire to locate and obtain information to satisfy a conscious or unconscious need. The ‘information’ and ‘need’ in ‘information need’ are an inseparable interconnection. Needs and interests call forth information. The objectives of studying information needs are:

  1. The explanation of observed phenomena of information use or expressed need;
  2. The prediction of instances of information uses;
  3. The control and thereby improvement of the utilization of information manipulation of essentials conditions.

Information needs are related to, but distinct from information requirements. An example is that a need is hunger; the requirement is food.


The concept of information needs was coined by an American information journalist Robert S. Taylor in his article "The Process of Asking Questions" published in American Documentation (Now is Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology).

In this paper, Taylor attempted to describe how an inquirer obtains an answer from an information system, by performing the process consciously or unconsciously; also he studied the reciprocal influence between the inquirer and a given system.

According to Taylor, information need has four levels:

  1. The conscious and unconscious need for information not existing in the remembered experience of the investigator. In terms of the query range, this level might be called the “ideal question” — the question which would bring from the ideal system exactly what the inquirer, if he could state his need. It is the actual, but unexpressed, need for information
  2. The conscious mental description of an ill-defined area of in decision. In this level, the inquirer might talk to someone else in the field to get an answer.
  3. A researcher forms a rational statement of his question. This statement is a rational and unambiguous description of the inquirer’s doubts.
  4. The question as presented to the information system.

There are variables within a system that influence the question and its formation. Taylor divided them into five groups: general aspects (physical and geographical factors); system input (What type of material is put into the system, and what is the unit item?); internal organization (classification, indexing, subject heading, and similar access schemes); question input (what part do human operators play in the total system?); output (interim feedback).

Herbert Menzel preferred demand studies to preference studies. Requests for information or documents that were actually made by scientists in the course of their activities form the data for demand studies. Data may be in the form of records of orders placed for bibliographics, calls for books from an interlibrary loan system, or inquires addressed to an information center or service. Menzel also investigated user study and defined information seeking behaviour from three angles:

  1. When approached from the point of view of the scientist or technologists, these are studies of scientists’ communication behaviour;
  2. When approached from the point of view of any communication medium, they are use studies;

William J. Paisley moved from information needs/uses toward strong guidelines for information system. He studied the theories of information-processing behavior that will generate propositions concerning channel selection; amount of seeking; effects on productivity of information quality, quantity, currency, and diversity; the role of motivational and personality factors, etc. He investigated a concentric conceptual framework for user research. In the framework, he places the information users at the centre of ten systems, which are:

  1. The scientist within his culture.
  2. The scientist within a political system.
  3. The scientist within a membership group.
  4. The scientist within a reference group.
  5. The scientist within an invisible college.
  6. The scientist within a formal organization.
  7. The scientist within a work team.
  8. The scientist within his own head.
  9. The scientist within a legal/economical system.
  10. The scientist within a formal.

See also[edit]


  • Hjørland, Birger (1997). Information seeking and subject representation. An activity-theoretical approach to information science. Westport, CO: Greenwood Press.
  • Menzel, Herbert. “Information Needs and Uses in Science and Technology.” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Vol. 1, Interscience Publishers 1966, pp 41-69.
  • Paisley, William J. “Information Needs and Uses.” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Vol.3, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Chicago 1968, pp.1-30.
  • Taylor, Robert S. “The Process of Asking Questions” American Documentation, Vol.13, No. 4, October 1962, pp.391-396, DOI: 10.1002/asi.5090130405.
  • Wilson, T.D. “On User Studies and Information Needs.” Journal of Documentation, Vol. 37, No. 1, 1981, pp.3-15