Yrkesverksamma konstnärers informationssökningsbeteende och informationsbehov : En användarstudie

Sammanfattning: This bachelor thesis examines how professional artists seek information and what information needs they have within their creative work. Previous research have mostly been focused on art students and there is a small amount of research that have focused on professional artists. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine how the artists seek information and what information needs they have. This is done by using qualitative interviews with five professional artists. The results are analyzed with two of Tom Wilson’s models of information seeking and information seeking behavior. The study also reviews a themed based theory on artists main information needs by Susie Cobbledick. This study found that Cobbledick's five themes regarding the information needs, fits well with the artists information needs overall, but some themes are perceived more prominent than others. The artists information seeking behavior and information needs vary depending on the situation in which we have found that the artists primarily seek information by turning to their colleagues, early teachers and by searching information on the internet. When we analyzed how artists seek inspiration, we found that the artists find their information through information encountering rather than information seeking.