Abstract Researchers increasingly share data, both on their own initiative and as a result of requirements by funding agencies and publishers. For data to be accessible and reusable, it must be understandable. While typical metadata covers rudimentary information about data, data re‐users often need more contextual information, including paradata informative of data‐related practices and processes. To better understand the practices and types of data descriptions researchers produce, this paper analyzes 33 interviews with researchers and professionals working with archeological data in different capacities. We identified five data description practices: (1) prescribing, (2) keeping track, (3) describing (of what was done (processes); of structures, techniques, methods; of principles, rationales, decisions; of limitations of data), (4) flagging, and (5) publishing, formatting, and making available. A part evinces integrated paradata creation where paradata generation is tightly incorporated in the enactment of specific research methods, and a part standalone paradata creation prompted by aspirations to produce specific types of outputs. The findings suggest that underpinning instrumentalities, and the extent to which paradata creation is integral to research practice is central when developing means to support paradata generation, identifying where to find and how to manage it.

Abstract Research on how people look for and interact with information has a long history in the information field. The current literature has been repeatedly reviewed in earlier volumes of Annual Review of Information Science and Technology . In this review, we offer an overview of the research published in this area in the years 2016–2022 with a focus on the trends that have emerged in this period. We use the term “information behavior” as an umbrella for the research area interested in how people become informed and engage with information in diverse manners acknowledging that different researchers and subfields prefer other terms and frameworks, including information practices, information experience, and health information seeking, to name a few. We reviewed 1270 articles in the field published in the years 2016–2022 and identified seven emerging trends: The CoVID‐19 Pandemic, Diversity and Inclusion, Embodiment, Misinformation and Trust, Social Q&A Websites, Collaboration, and Information Creation. The reviewed literature and trends are discussed in relation to their significance for information, earlier review of information behavior research, and the long‐debated issue of theory‐driven versus atheoretical research in the field.

Abstract This quasi‐experiment examines the self‐assessment of psychological empowerment in the workplace among humanities and social science graduates who completed one of four digital literacy courses and were employed in the business services sector 6 months after graduation. The four courses—information literacy, data literacy, visual literacy, and communication and collaboration—were designed using information literacy and digital skills frameworks and were offered to support students' employability. Psychological empowerment was measured with four dimensions: meaning, competence, self‐determination, and impact. Statistical inference with a probabilistic approach using Bayesian ANOVA was conducted. The four courses varied in their impact on empowerment, with the information literacy course corresponding to the highest empowerment scores. The training also related differentially to the four dimensions of empowerment, with the highest scores on meaning. Evidence indicates that digital literacy instruction supports the psychological empowerment of humanities and social science graduates employed in the business services sector.

Abstract Contemporary research and innovation policies and advocates of data‐intensive research paradigms continue to urge increased sharing of research data. Such paradigms are underpinned by a pro‐data, normative data culture that has become dominant in the contemporary discourse. Earlier research on research data sharing has directed little attention to its alternatives as more than a deficit. The present study aims to provide insights into researchers' perspectives, rationales and practices of (non‐)sharing of research data in relation to their research practices. We address two research questions, (RQ1) what underpinning patterns can be identified in researchers' (non‐)sharing of research data, and (RQ2) how are attitudes and data‐sharing linked to researchers' general practices of conducting their research. We identify and describe data‐decentered culture and non‐data culture as alternatives and parallels to the data‐driven culture, and describe researchers de‐inscriptions of how they resist and appropriate predominant notions of data in their data practices by problematizing the notion of data, asserting exceptions to the general case of data sharing, and resisting or opting out from data sharing.

Abstract Information behavior theory covers different aspects of the totality of information‐related human behavior rather unevenly. The transitions or trading zones between different types of information activities have remained perhaps especially under‐theorized. This article interrogates and expands a conceptual apparatus of information making and information taking as a pair of substantial concepts for explaining, in part, the mobility of information in terms of doing that unfolds as a process of becoming rather than of being, and in part, what is happening when information comes into being and when something is taken up for use as information. Besides providing an apparatus to describe the nexus of information provision and acquisition, a closer consideration of the parallel doings opens opportunities to enrich the inquiry of the conditions and practice of information seeking, appropriation, discovery, and retrieval as modes taking, and learning and information use as its posterities.

Abstract Information behavior and practices (IBP) research has been repeatedly criticized for having little impact on information systems development (ISD). Claiming that there is a complete disconnect would be an exaggeration but it is apparent that it is not always easy to translate findings of IBP research to workable design recommendations. Based on a reading of earlier literature and a closer investigation of three illustrative example contexts, this article underlines that the value of IBP research for ISD lies in its capability to inform ISD of the variety of ways people deal with information beyond individual systems, their own wants and designers' assumptions. Moreover, it highlights that the implications of information systems go beyond their primary users. Instead of overemphasizing the contextuality of findings, a part of IBP research would benefit from an increased focus on explicating its epistemological extents and limits and identifying, which findings are transferable, what distinguishes specific contexts, what are their defining constraints and priorities, and what aspects of their uniqueness are assumptions and simple clichés.

Boundary objects (BOs) are abstract or physical artifacts that exist in the liminal spaces between adjacent communities of people. The theory of BOs was originally introduced by Star and Griesemer in a study on information practices at the Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology but has since been adapted in a broad range of research contexts in a large number of disciplines including the various branches of information science. The aim of this review article is to present an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art of information science research informed by the theory of BOs, critically discuss the notion, and propose a structured overview of how the notion has been applied in the study of information.

Better knowledge of the habits and preferences of patients helps one understand why and how patients might need or want to access health services online and offline. Such knowledge provides a basis for designing systems for providing complementary health information. This article discusses how patients' conceptualizations of their health‐information‐related preferences, motivations, and needs are linked to the perceived role of medical records as an informational artifact. We identified seven subject positions: (P1) Hypothetically positive to e‐health services generally, (P2) Positive to reading medical records due to implications, (P3) Positive to all Internet use including medical records online, (P4) Distrustful and wants to be in control of health treatment, (P5) Worried about health, (P6) Wants communication with health care professionals, and (P7) Do not understand their medical record. These subject positions can explain the worry and enthusiasm documented in earlier literature. The diversity of subject positions implies that health care information services should be planned with different subject positions in mind rather than a simple demographic group. Special attention needs to be given to finding flexible solutions that address the opportunities and worries of the identified subject positions.

Even if knowledge is a commodity that a museum offers asHooper‐Greenhill ( ) has argued, the mechanisms of how a museum comes to know what it mediates are not well understood. Using a case study approach, the aim of this study is to investigate what types of sources and channels, with a special emphasis on social processes and structures of information, support collaborative information work, and the emergence of knowledge in a museum environment. The empirical study was conducted using a combination of ethnographic observation of and interviews with staff members at a medium‐sized museum in a Nordic country. The study shows that much of the daily information work is routinized and infrastructuralized in social information exchange and reproduction of documented information and museum collections.

Boundary objects are artifacts that reside in the interface between communities and are capable of bridging assumed and experienced differences. Bridging is not, however, necessarily a neutral or a consensual activity. With an emphasis on documents, the present article discusses the politics of boundary objects by analyzing the role of archaeological reports at boundaries between communities with conflicting interests. The analysis demonstrates and discusses the political and purposeful nature of boundary objects—how they are devices for creating and maintaining hegemonies within communities and achieving authority over other intersecting groups of people. The study uses the notion of hegemony and the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (2001) to conceptualize the role of boundary objects as articulations of power and to explicate the dynamics of how the power is exercised.

Abstract The work of corporate finance professionals is information‐intensive, despite the fact that the practices and motivations of their information preferences have been researched very little. The present study investigates perceived success and how it is related to corporate finance professionals' information source use behavior based on a Web survey of 92 Finnish corporate finance professionals. The principal finding of the statistical analysis of the data is that perceptions of work success and specific types of information sources contributing to the success are related. The correlations are complex, and very different types of information sources contribute to individual types of success, and vice versa. The findings indicate that information sources function as measures of success and serve an instrumental purpose. Besides functional relations, the correlation of the variables suggests more comprehensive success and information source use related dependencies and preferences. The findings imply that by studying existing perceptions of success, it is possible to make inferences about preferred information sources. The study also suggests that both personal and organizational perceptions of success should be taken into account when planning information services and information literacy education for corporate finance professionals to increase their effectiveness and relevance for the professionals.