FACULTY OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

LIS 210: THE INFORMATION USER

LECTURER:
OLAYINKA MARY ADEKOYA 09036334351 [email protected]

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The Information User LIS 210 LECTURE NOTE
Introduction
It is very important for you to know that the most important component of any
information system is the user. Without the user, the financial, material and the human
resources expended in the collection, processing, and organization of information
resources and products will amount to waste of resources. All information activities are
carried out because of the users. Within the library set up, the user is considered as
“king”. Library resources are provided and services rendered to meet the information
needs of the different categories of users by different types of libraries. However, the
concept of the information user goes beyond library users.
Information users are important within the whole information systems. Information
in itself exists because there are users whose needs must be satisfied. There are a
number of synonymous terms used to represent the concept of an information
user. Terms like patrons, clients, member, customer and the likes readily come to
mind.
It is important to express that almost everyone and indeed everyone at one time or
another makes use of information. This makes everybody an information user. However
an information user should not be confused with an information seeker.

Concept of Information
Information is an elusive and controversial concept to define. This is evident in the
various definitions and attributes of the concept. In spite of the fact that information is
as old as man himself and that it affects and is affected by all aspects of human
activities, no consensual definition of the word exists in the literature. Factually,
information is that which reduces uncertainty. It is that which assists in decision making
and it may exist as data in books, computer, people’s files and thousands of other
sources. These sources have to be considered simply as raw data which does not

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become information until it is used by someone to achieve a specific purpose.
Information is also seen as a symbol or a set of symbols which has the potential for
meaning.

Information is further seen as a multidisciplinary concept in which different

professionals view it in different ways. For instance, data processing manager might
see it in terms of data, the records manager in terms of records and reports, the
librarians or information scientists in terms of documents or materials and the ordinary
man in the street in terms of messages.

Who is an Information User?

1. An information user therefore is an individual, who seeks for information, receives it
and put
such information into effective use.
2. An information user can also be described as the person, who is actively seeking
access to
knowledge/information and who when successful, obtains and uses the
knowledge/information.
3. The information user is a person who makes use of an information product,
information
system or information service. However, in a more general sense, the term also
applies to
anyone among the people for whom the product, system or service was developed or
put in
place. This is irrespective of how much the individual is making use of it. Certainly
some
individuals in a user community will be making intensive use of the service. Some will
not be
making much use of it, while some will not seem to be using the service at all. People
in this
last category are usually referred to as non- users.

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A student that seeks information about the time of his lectures and makes it a point of
duty to always come before the classes start is an information user. For someone to be
described as an information user, the meaning is that the information must be used for
the purpose in which it was sought in the first place.

Information seeker
An information seeker may be anybody who goes about asking or looking for
information, or hearing news without necessary putting it to use. An individual who is
in dire need of a job who goes on the internet every day to check for job advert and
still who has not yet decided whether to apply or not, is just an information seeker.
Drivers who are trained on how to drive with caution on the road in order to
avoid accidents and still drive recklessly are not information users. Male
students in Federal University Lokoja who during orientation exercise took their
time to listen to different anti-cultism lectures, only to end up engaging in cultism
activities on campus themselves are only information seekers not its users.

Information users can be categorized in a number of ways:

1. User category by profession/work environment
This suggests that information users can be determined based on the profession and
the work environment. Individuals in the medical profession like doctors, librarianship,
pharmacists and nurses will seek and use information relating to their profession.
Their information use will be determined by medical condition of patients, case history,
illness type and financial capacity. Similarly, individuals that work in a factory setting
will be concerned about safety of their work environment, salaries and wages,
factory equipment and the likes. All these will determine the kind of information that
they seek, how to obtain such information and eventually how the information will be
put to use. Most professionals are highly literate individuals and they make use of
different information media to access information that will be of great need to them.

i. Researchers and Lecturers: These are individuals with high academic

qualifications who render their services in higher institutions like
polytechnics and universities. By virtue of their enlightenment they also

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 consult different sources of information to meet their information need.
i. Artisans (Urban and Rural Based): These individuals are the drivers of the
local economy. They are those in charge of small and medium scale
agencies thrive on vocational skills. Examples include carpenters,
barbers, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, welders, panel beaters, painters,
tailors etc. Some of these individuals are not educated, even though due to the
unemployment situation in the country, many graduates also engage in these
activities. Due to the facts that these individuals have their various needs
which they would like to address, they are also information users.
2. User group by Education
Information users can be categorized as literate, semi-literate, neo-literate or
illiterate based on their level of education. The information that an educated person
will seek and use will definitely be different from the one an illiterate will seek and use.
While an educated person in the academia may be concerned with how to seek
financial grants to carry out a research, an illiterate may tend to seek for how to
join the daily contribution of local credit and thrift society. Additionally, an educated
person will be concerned about the affairs of government, monitoring events and
contributing to political debates. The business of the illiterate may be how to
demand for stipend from politicians, the business of how the people’s money is
spent is not his concern. These sets of individuals will no doubt, seek and use
information differently.
3. User category by Gender
Information users can also be categorized along the lines of gender. For example,
the information that a young girl will seek at puberty will quite be different from
what a young boy of the same age will seek. A young girl just like a young boy at that
stage of life will no doubt experience changes in the body. The girl may start to do
menstruation, while the boy may at times experience occasional emission. The young
girl will no doubt seek and use information that will help her during the menstrual
cycle, while the boy will also seek and use information pertaining to the
changes that his body is undergoing. This differentiates them as information
users.

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4. User category by information need
Individuals seek and use information based on the need for that information. A
doctor who wants to establish a poultry farm will no doubt seek and use information
about how to establish and maintain the poultry. An illiterate farmer in the village who
wants to travel to a city he has not been before to liaise with an industry who wishes
to use his products from the farm will definitely seek information about how to get to
the city from his location and how he would locate the industry in the city. A critique
on studies on user’s information needs was done and it was concluded that
information needs are situational.
Children, Pupils, Students and Adults also determine the information needs of
individuals.
i. Children: These essentially are small children who are in pre-primary schools.
As young as they are, they could be considered as information users. They learn
the alphabets and numbers at that young age, it is amazing that most of them
grasp these fast and before long they start to recite the alphabets and 1, 2, 3…..
sub-consciously. At this early age, these individuals play with toys, objects,
drawings and the likes.

ii. Pupils: These are children and young adults in primary and secondary schools.
Some of them are already teenagers and they seek and use information
pertaining to their teenage experiences. This group of information users also
has the need to seek information about their educational activities.
iii. Students: These refer to those who are studying in institutions of higher
learning like colleges of education, polytechnics and universities. These
individuals engage in serious academic work and therefore seek and use
information retrieved from different sources like the library and the internet to
support their learning and research.
iv. Adults: These are individuals who already have commitments and
responsibilities. Some of them may be married but still in active service as
regards employments, while some may be retirees. These individual form an
information user group that are concerned with how to guarantee livelihood for
themselves and members of their families. Some of the seniors visit the public

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 library to read daily newspapers to keep themselves abreast of the happenings
in the country.
5. User by Institution
Individuals may become information users based on the institution in which they
belong. For example, students constitute a user group. Students seek and use
information about how to register for courses, how to secure accommodations, when
to attend classes, how to study, when to study, where to study, what to study, when
examinations will come up, how to excel in examinations, when to check their results
and the likes.
In addition, workers in Federal Government establishments may seek and use
information about bio-metric data capture exercise, government circulars and
directives, salary issues, contributory pension matters and the likes. This is the effect
of institutional factors on people.
6. User community by language
Information users can also be categorized based on language. Individuals who
speak a particular language form a user group. It is not unusual to see Hausa’s in
a city like Ibadan, tuned to the radio stations that broadcast in their native language.
These individuals at times seek and use information on where they can settle within
the city, where they can display their wares and where certain material cultural
products can be acquired. In like manner, the Yorubas who are in the North also
require and use information on where to eat local Yoruba delicacies, where the
Yoruba meetings are held and the likes.
7. User category by Disabilities: These include individuals with hearing, visual and
physical disabilities. According to Oyundoyin (2013) these individuals face;
i. Natural exclusion: By virtue of their disabilities, these individuals have
problems with mobility and dexterity and cannot move freely as others, and
equally encounter difficulties in performing manual tasks.
ii. Artificial exclusion: This refers to the way and manner in which individuals
in the society treats these individuals. Often at occasions and gatherings,
there are no place strictly reserved for them for easy accessibility. The public
buildings are constructed without ramps, instead the individuals, especially

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 those with physical disabilities will be subjected to the rigors of climbing the
steps and even in some higher institutions, seats are suited only for right-
handed persons, thereby automatically excluding those who are left-handed.
These individuals who are also our family members should therefore not be
treated like second class citizens. All hands must be on desk to ensure that the
already excluded are included. This also relates to the facts that information
resources that will assist them to use information as users, should be provided.
Resources like Braille books, books read on tapes or compact discs, kurzweil
reading machine, large print book, character recognition devices, finger alphabet,
video tapes and telephones, should be readily available to them either in the library
and other information centers. It should be noted that the list given here may not be
exhaustive as all individuals with different callings, orientation, role, duties and
functions are all information users.
8. Policy Makers and Planners users: These are government and private workers who
work in ministries, departments and agencies. They are the technocrats that make
public policies. They occupy positions such as ministers, permanent secretaries,
heads of parastatals, chief executive of companies etc. All these individuals are
information users.
9. Rural Dwellers users: Most of the individuals in Nigeria, statistics say close to 70%
live in the rural areas, the same is also true for so many other African countries. Most
rural dwellers are farmers, even though some engage in activities as dictated by their
environment like fishing and the likes. Most rural areas lack basic social amenities
that will make life more meaningful and enjoyable. No wonder most youths leave the
rural area for the cities in search for greener pastures. Though, some who retire
from active service return to the villages. This highlights the fact that literate
individuals are also available in the rural areas. Rural dwellers need and use
information for different purposes.

Information Need

Having studied the concept and categories of information users, it is pertinent for you

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to note that before an individual can actually use information, there must be a need
for such information. Information need is very critical to information utilization. An
individual that seeks, obtains and use information that is not needed as succeeded in
wasting useful time that can be used in other fruitful endeavors. Information need of
users may be categorized according to the purpose and perhaps the nature of the
user. Regardless, of this there are still some types of information that are needed by
almost everybody because they deal with our everyday information needs.

 Information need is a factual situation in which there exists an

inseparable inter-
connection between ‘information’ and ‘need’. Information is created because
there is a
need for it.
 Information need is a state of gap between information and available knowledge
to solve a problem and the actual solution to that problem.
 Information need as a piece of information whether recorded or not which an
individual or a member of a group requires for effective functioning in daily
activities.
 It can also be seen as a set of data which enables the user to take appropriate
decisions on any related problem facing him or her at a particular time. In other
words, information is needed because it enables individuals to take decisions
that affect their living.
Moreover, information needs arise when the state of possessed knowledge is
less than that needed to deal with some issues and they are diverse, consistently
changing and not amenable to generalization. The uses of information needs
vary among individuals, groups and society.
Information need therefore arises when an individual senses a problematic
situation or information gap, in which his or her internal knowledge and
beliefs and model of the environment fail to suggest a path towards the
satisfaction of his or her goals. Such an identified information need may lead
to information seeking and the formulation of requests for information.

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Types of Information Needs
There are several ways to categories’ the information needs of people. One obvious way
is to consider what the information will be used for; and so, we can recognise factual
information, research information, statistical information, directional information,
procedural information, historical information, and so forth. The types of query that
people bring to a document retrieval system provide another way of classifying
information needs. While some users request for particular documents by author or title
(known item request), others request for documents that can provide answers to the
questions they are contending with or that address their areas of interest (subject
request). Thus, we have two types of needs here: a known-item need and a subject need.
subject need are classified into:
• the need for information to aid in the solution of a particular problem or facilitate the
making of a particular decision; and
• information on new developments in a particular field of specialization. The first of the
two is a current awareness need, which is best satisfied by current awareness services.
The need does not have to be strictly defined. Besides, the user is more passive in
respect of his role in meeting the need. The second need is one of retrospective
bibliographic search. The user makes his request in well-defined terms because he has
defined his problem and he knows exactly what kind of information he needs.

The Everyday Information Need of the Average Citizen

S/N Major Category Brief Description

1 Neighbourhood Problems with neighbours, children, dirty environment,
traffic etc.
2 Consumer Problems with product quality, consumer protection,
prices etc.
3 Housing Problems with landlords, loans and mortgage, selling
a
4 Housekeeping and Problems with utility service, do-it-yourself projects,
household maintenance car
5 Employment Problems with getting a job, changing jobs, job training
etc

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 6 Education and Problems with financial aid, cost of education, strikes
Schooling etc
7 Health Problems with mental health, cost of health
care,
8 Transportation Problems with transportation fee, inadequate bus
service,
9 Recreation and Culture f
Problems d recreational opportunities,
with finding d
festivals etc
10 Financial Matters or Problems with taxes, getting credit loans,
Assistance retirement,
11 Public Assistance and Problems of social security, medicare, welfare etc
Social Security
12 Discrimination and Problems with racial or tribal tensions, race, tribe or
Race or Tribe Relations sex
13 Child Care and Family Problems of child care. Child behaviour, personal
problems etc
14 Family Planning and Problems with family planning, birth control etc
Birth Control
15 Legal Problems with legal aspects of marriages,
contracts,
16 Crime and Safety Problem with tax law enforcement, crime, drugs etc
17 Immigration, Migration Problems with immigration, citizenship, document
and Mobility translation etc
18 Veterans and Military Problems with veteran’s benefits, rights military service
etc
19 Public Affairs, Political Problems with locating agencies, people, religion,
and Miscellaneous news,
Table 1: The multifarious nature of the information needs of an average
citizen.

Information Agencies and their Role in Meeting Users Need

As you already know, there are a number of agencies that deal with information
provision and access. These agencies play their part in ensuring that users have
access to the required information that they need in different formats, in order to
make rational and informed decisions. Even though some of the roles of the

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information agencies overlap, they have different mandates in providing information
to their targeted audience. These information agencies are libraries, museums, the
mass media, archives and record management centres.

Figure 2: Information Agencies

1. The library
This is an institution that is responsible for the collection, processing and storage
of recorded knowledge for the purpose of reading, study and consultation. The library
can also be seen as an institution that meticulously select, consciously acquire,
tirelessly process, systematically organize, willing disseminate and jealously
preserve information resources in different formats (print, audio-visual and electronic)
in order for the information needs of users to be met.

Gone are the days, when the name ‘library’ is mentioned, the picture that comes to
mind is a place, a building where books are stored. Presently, libraries are
understood as extending beyond the physical walls of a building. The role of the
library in meeting users need includes;
 Provision of Information: in order to meet the information needs of users,

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 libraries provide the access to different information resources. Examples of
these resources include books (textbooks, fiction books and reference books),
serials, audio-visual materials (audio recordings and video recordings, pictures,
charts, maps, atlases, microforms and the likes) and electronic information
resources (e-books, e-journals and e-magazines).
 Preservation of Culture: the information resources that are acquired processed
and organized in the library are products of human knowledge that are recorded
and preserved for the benefit of individuals at present and those of the future.
Knowledge is an important aspect of culture. The libraries as the storehouse of
these resources are actually preserving culture.
 Promotion of Education: the information resources in the libraries are on
different subjects; this makes it possible for users who use these resources to be
educated in any field of human knowledge. The educational role of libraries is
evident with the libraries that are attached to educational institutions. These
libraries support educational activities with information resources.
 Provision of Aesthetic Enjoyment: libraries also provide access to information
resources that can be used for relaxation purposes. These materials include
magazines, newspapers, novels, storybooks, educational games, films etc.
With these roles performed by the library, users can have their various information
needs met. The different types of libraries also ensure that target groups get the needed
information that they desire.

The types of Libraries

The types of libraries include;
_ Academic Libraries
_ School Libraries
_ National libraries
_ Special Libraries
_ Public Libraries

2. Museums

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Museums are non-profit making, permanent institutions in the service of society and of
its development, and open to the public, that acquire, conserve, research, communicate
and exhibit for the purpose of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of
people and their environment . Museums have traditionally existed to acquire, preserve,
interpret and present works of art and artefacts. The role of museums is to collect
objects and materials of cultural, religious and historical importance, preserve them,
research into them and present them to the public for the purpose of education and
enjoyment.
The museum as an institution tells the story of man the world over and how humanity
has
survived in its environment over the years. It houses things created by nature and by
man and in our modern society it houses the cultural soul of the nation. Museum holds
the cultural wealth of the nation in trust for all generations and by its function and
unique position, it has become the cultural conscience of the nation. The role of
museum in the society cannot be overemphasized.
Museums impact positively on the educational sector. Education is critical for
development. Education that is devoid of the culture of the people in the society is
empty and incomplete. One of the fundamental objectives of the museum is to educate,
and it is only the museum that has the capacity and the ability to impart cultural
education effectively as it houses the tools and materials for doing so in its collection.
The museum also uses its resources to promote peace and foster dialogue in the
society. For a people to live in peace and happiness there must be unity. Museums do
promote unity in the society by using their resources to ensure understanding and
appreciation for the various groups and cultures that exist in that society.

The cultural heritage in the museum includes; manuscripts, paintings, textiles, coins,
arms and armour, leather goods, fossils and industrial processes. These materials find
their way into the museum through gifts, purchase, trading with other museums and
expeditions.

3. Mass Media

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These include information agencies like the radio stations, television stations and
newspaper agencies. There are radio stations owned by the government, private
individuals and organizations who broadcast daily and for some round the clock
information in form of news and programs. Millions of people tune to them and they get
informed about activities of government and other happenings in the society. Some
radio stations meet the recreational needs of individuals by devoting their entire
program to music and sports for 24 hours. Television stations are also meeting the
information needs of individuals today. Local and international stations abound with
different program line up that meet the different information needs of individuals.
Educational programs, interviews, documentaries and other interesting and educative
programs are televised.
Newspapers are also very popular. They report political, health, agricultural, sport and
other stories on a daily basis. In order to meet their information needs, individuals who
want to get informed must purchase them. Different types of information can be found
inside the newspapers. For instance an individual who is in dire need of a job can get
employment opportunities on the pages of the newspapers.
However, the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web has made it possible for
the newspapers to be accessed electronically. Most of the newspapers in Nigeria have
their electronic version accessible through their websites.

4. Archives and Records Management Centres

Archives are collection of records of historical importance which are preserved because
of their enduring and lasting value. These records are generated in the course of the day
to day routines of organizations and government establishments. Archives are an
essential part of the government’s institutional memory. They are also a major cultural
and scientific information resource and a significant element in national information
system. These institutions are responsible for the collection and preservation of public
and historical records for the use of historians and researchers.
Archives could also mean a body of non-current permanently valuable records.

Wilson’s information need model (1981)

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This model states that information need perceived by information seeker gives way for
information seeking behaviour to occur. In order to satisfy the information need, the
user makes demand for formal and informal information sources and systems. The
demand leads him to either success or failure in getting the required information. On
success, the user gets his need partially or fully met or satisfied. On failure the user
restarts his search process. Information seeking behaviour may also involve other
people through information exchange by means of passing the useful information to
them as well as using the information by the seekers themselves.

Information Seeking Behaviour

During the search for the needed information, information users exhibit certain
behaviours which should not be overlooked by information agencies like libraries. A
careful study of the behaviour of users can help improve information provision and
access. Due to this, it is very important for the information seeking behaviour of users
to be examined.
 Information seeking behaviour can be defined as the combination of all the
activities that a person engages in when identifying his or her own need for
information, searching for such information in any way and using or transferring
of information.
 Information seeking behaviour can be described as the way an information user
conducts him or acts when looking for, receiving or acquiring information.
 Information seeking behaviour deals with how people need, seek, manage, give
and use information in different contexts.
 Information seeking behaviour is the totality of human behaviour in relation to the
sources and channels of information, including both active and passive
information
seeking and information use.
Attributes like gestures, anger, anxiety, eagerness, reluctance, zeal, enthusiasm, apathy,
passion, worry, apprehension and concern displayed by an information user in his

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efforts
to purchase, acquire, retrieve or receive news, data, stories or anything that may inform
or
otherwise his knowledge and understanding of something, constitute information
seeking
behaviour.

Factors that Determine Information Seeking Behaviour

Information seeking behaviour is function of;

Figure 3: Information Seeking Behaviour’s Function

1. Demographic factors: demographic variables like age, gender,

educational qualification, religion, occupation, marital status, location and finance
can determine the information seeking behaviour of users. A young boy who
receives a very difficult homework from his class teacher may first of all show his
parent. If the parent cannot fill the information gap, older learned siblings may be
consulted. Through that way, the boy may get help with the assignment. The same
cannot be said of a university student who is an adult. If he gets an assignment that
must be done, we do not expect him to show his parent in order to get help from them.
On his own, he can formulate ideas on how the assignment can be done; better still he
can discuss with a group of friends, visit the library or browse the internet.

In addition, it would be an eye-saw to see a man in the office of a gynaecologist

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complaining about a particular ailment that he has. This is because a gynaecologist is a
medical expert that treats women, especially with reproductive issues. This implies that
gender also to a large extent influences information seeking behaviour.

Similarly, if a Christian has personal problems, there is a very high tendency that such an
individual might approach his religious leader. The same also applies to a Muslim. It is
not uncommon to see individuals who will approach their friends, pour their hearts to
them about problems that need solution and the friends in return take them to a
mountain for deliverance. This reveals the connection between religion and information
seeking behaviour.

Marital status could also influence information seeking behaviour. An individual, who is
single, when the need for arises, may decide to seek information from any source he
wishes. But that disposition is likely change when he is married. This is because he may
not always make decisions that are of serious concern alone; he has to consult with his
mate. If the man is an individual who loves to visit spiritualists to find help to combat
health challenges, the wife may not subscribe to that. She may be of the view that, if
there is a health challenge, the doctors should be visited.

2. Institutional factors: these are factors that reside with information agencies like the
library. Information seeking will likely not be successful for users if information
resources are not available in the library, or they are available but not accessible. Also, if
adequate awareness and user education are not carried out, information seeking
behavior of users will also be affected. This is because when a need for information
arises, due to lack of awareness, they would not realize that the information that they
need actually resides in the library. In like manner, even if they are aware of the
resources but they do not have the knowledge and skills to retrieve the needed
information from the collection of the library, they would not have their information need
satisfied.

3. Nature of the information need: it is very difficult to detach information need from

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information seeking behaviour. In fact the reason why there is a need to seek for
information in the first instance is because of an information need. However, the nature
of the information that is needed may determine the steps that will be taken, strategies
to employ and the source that will be contacted to satisfy the information needs.

The Information User in the Age of ICT

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is concerned with the technology

used in handling, acquiring, processing, storing and disseminating information. ICT has
developed to such a stage that it has given access to information at fingertips. Islam
and Islam (2006) expressed that ICT provides; speedy and easy access to information,
remote access to users, round the clock access to users, access to unlimited
information from different sources and information flexibility to be used by any
individual according to his/her requirement.

Prominent ICT devices that have helped in the globalization of information and
knowledge are the internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). These two products of ICT
have together provided the connectivity and the access to unlimited information. The
internet is the global connectivity of computer networks. It is often referred to as the
network of networks and the information superhighway. WWW otherwise called the web
is the platform that provides access to the information in a multimedia format through
the internet. The web provides access to millions of websites that hold tons and tons of
information.

Skills for Information Users in Information Age

In order to access information over the internet, individuals need to develop the required
skills. These include;

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Figure 4: Skills for Information Users

1. ICT Literacy: ICT literacy refers to the knowledge and skills necessary to understand
information and communication technologies (ICTs), including the hardware, the
software, systems, networks (both local area networks and the Internet), and all of the
other components of computer and telecommunications systems.
ICT literacy will assist information users develop the competencies of using products of
technology that are getting all the more increasingly compact, to retrieve the needed
information. Smart devices like mobile phones (with windows and android operating
systems), computer tablets and I pads, apart from being tools used for communication,
have the capacity to retrieve vast information from the internet through a push of a
button. Individuals who are ICT literate can utilize these devices to access information
to meet their needs. These devices should not be for youths only; adults should also
have ICT literacy if they do not want to be left behind on the information superhighway.

2. Media Literacy: Media literacy refers to the knowledge and skills necessary to
understand all of the mediums and formats in which data, information and knowledge

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are created, stored, communicated and presented, i.e., print newspapers and journals,
magazines, radio, television broadcasts, cable, CD-ROM, DVD, mobile telephones, PDF
text formats, and JPEG format for photos and graphics. The age of ICT is creating the
avenue for information to exist in different formats. Information users should be media
literate so that they would be able to recognize all the media and also have the required
skills to retrieve the information that they need from them.

3. Web Search Skills: Web search skills refer to the proficiency in the use of WWW to
retrieve information. These skills are particularly needed when using the search engines.
Search engines enable a user to find the contents of millions of web-pages
simultaneously once the appropriate search terms or keywords are used. Information
users in this age of ICT, should be familiar with these search engines, as studies have
confirmed that the preference of individuals for search engines as against all other
information sources is soaring higher by the day. Information users should be familiar
with basic online searching process. This would assist them to get the needed
information out of the millions that are on different WebPages.

Basic Online Searching Process

Information users must know how to search the web for the desired information. This
will ease the location and retrieval of information content through the use of the search
engines. Some individuals express their frustration of not getting the information that
they desire on the web. This could be as a result of not following the process of online
searching. Search terms are very important when it comes to online searching. The
various volumes of information indexed on the web can be retrieved through the use of
appropriate search terms. Information users interact with the database through the use
of search terms. Depending on the information needs of the user, single or combination
of search terms may be required. There are specific techniques of retrieving information
with the use of single search terms. An individual who does not know these techniques
may end up spending more time on the web and still may not able to retrieve the needed
information.
A technique that can help users to search with single search term is the use of
truncation.

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Such truncation are * and +. When an asterisk is combined with a search term, it
symbolizes that the database should retrieve only documents with the asterisked word.
For instance, a single search term like Football* is instructing the database to retrieve
documents with the term football, and not documents on footballers. On the other hand,
a search time like Football+ is instructing the database to retrieve documents with all
the eight letters of the search term. In this case, documents on football and footballers
will be retrieved.
Moreover, if the query of the user requires a combination of terms to be used in
searching, Boolean Operators and Proximity concepts could be employed.

Boolean Operators are AND, OR and NOT. They are used to widen or narrow the search.
The AND operator usually makes a search appropriate, OR operator is usually used for
synonyms or related terms, and NOT is used to specify the documents that are only
needed. For example a search on “The History of Nigeria” will bring different results if
the Boolean Operators are used. If ‘History AND Nigeria’ is combined, the documents
that will be retrieved will be those on history of Nigeria only. If ‘History OR Nigeria’ is
combined, the documents that will be retrieved will be those that have the terms
‘History’, ‘Nigeria’, ‘History of Nigeria’. The use of NOT, ‘History NOT Nigeria’ will only
retrieve documents on history general history as a subject discipline or history of any
phenomenon, and not history of Nigeria.
Proximity features are also used when a search will involve the combination of terms.
The terms used are proximity ADJ and proximity SEN. The use of these two features
can be illustrated with the use of this example. Consider these two project articles;
“Accessibility and use of library resources by undergraduates for academic activities in
University of Ibadan, Nigeria”
Factors affecting the use of library resources for academic activities by undergraduates
in University of Ibadan, Nigeria”
In these two project articles, “library resources” and “undergraduates” are present. The
search of both terms using this search term “Library Resources and Undergraduates
ADJ” will only retrieve article number one and not number two. This is because in the
first article, library resources and undergraduates are adjacent (nearby) to each other

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unlike in the second article where they are not adjacent to each other although they are
both present in the title of the article.
But when proximity SEN is used in this way “Library Resources and Undergraduates”,
the two articles will be retrieved. This is because SEN symbolizes that as long as these
terms are in the sentence, fetch them out regardless of whether the terms are close to
each other or not.

Information users must master all these skills if they are to have access to the
information resources that they need anytime and as anywhere and also to enjoy the
benefits that the ICT environment has created. Apart from these skills, information
users must also be information literate to be successful in getting the needed
information.

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