Just came across this fascinating article ( at least to me): Learning from research on the information behaviour of healthcare professionals: a review of the literature 2004- 2008 with a focus on emotion. Fourie, Ina. Health Information & Libraries JournalVolume 2009 26(3):171 - 186. This study is a very detailed analysis of the scant literature on the role that "emotion" plays in health provider's information seeking behavior. Emotion goes way beyond what we might initially think and extends to include nine identified themes. Just a few of these 9 identified themes include: "difficulty in identifying and expressing information needs and information behavior", "uncertainty and anxiety", the role that personality and coping skills play and the role that self confidance and attitude play. The author even offers a detailed table with a large number of suggestions as to how Library and Information Science(LIS) professionals might impact or ameliorate the information seeking barriers of "emotional issues". One quote that really resonated with me from MacIntosh-Murrray and Choo in their article "Information behavior in the context of improving patient safety" Journal of the American Society for Information Science and technology 2005 56:1332-1345 "...front line staff are task driven, coping with heavy workloads that limit their attention to and recognition of potential information needs and knowledge gaps" However, a surrogate in an information-related role, an "information/change agent"-may intervene successfully with staff ..." What do you all think? any innovative ways in which librarians can better play this role as an information surrogate?
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