Humanisters informationsbeteende : informationssökningsprocesser hos forskarstudenter inom humaniora

Sammanfattning: The Humanities consist of a broad array of academic disciplines that study human language, thought, artistic creations etc. The history of the Humanities is long and complex and the tensions between tradition and new ways of doing things form an essential part of the contemporary situation of this academic field. Such tensions offer an interesting perspective of the information behaviour of the new generation of scholars in the Humanities. This master’s thesis attempts to ascertain if there is a clear connection between the information seeking behaviour among the PhD Students in the Humanistic field and their attitudes towards traditions within their institutions as well as within the Humanities in general. To achieve this objective, the Information Search Process among PhD students from different academic disciplines at the Center for Languages and Literature (SOL) of Lund University were analyzed through two different surveys: one questionnaire study answered by 15 PhD students and one interview study with 8 participants. The theoretical background of this study is the ISP model introduced by Carol Kuhlthau and some concepts concerning traditions within the Academic field presented by Swedish ethnologist Fredrik Schoug. From these two surveys the picture of their Information Search Process became sufficiently clear to draw some basic conclusions concerning how the PhD students searched for Information in their daily work, and what they found difficult, as well as their attitudes towards traditions in a larger sense. Another question, although of less importance in this study, concerns the possible relation between the academic discipline and the information seeking behaviour of the PhD students.