amir nikzaman

Information behaviors can be divided into two general categories based on the degree of users’ awareness of information need and purposiveness in meeting it: information seeking and information encountering. In a simple definition, information encountering is serendipitous acquisition of information. The aim of this study is to see what information encountering is and to identify psychological and environmental factors affecting the occurrence of this phenomenon.

This research implemented a library research method.

The conscious or unconscious decision to pursue information is guided by a complex process of cognition, motivation and emotion. Certain personality traits as well as certain motivational and emotional states seem to enhance serendipitous discovery. There are some environmental factors increasing the occurrence possibility of information encountering.

Human behavior is the product of three factors: motivation, ability, and extrinsic triggers. Regarding the information behavior, information needs and interests create motivation; ability includes cognitive and psychological abilities; Extrinsic triggers include divergent and convergent structures in informational environment providing possibilities of appearing divergent and convergent information behavior. Although the degree of user’s awareness of own information need and purposiveness in meeting it and so his/her cognitive and psychological abilities determine the divergence or convergence of information behavior, but this is the structure of informational environment that provides the ways users can interact and make it possible users to be diverged or converged. Individual differences in the degree of information encountering relate profoundly to cognitive abilities such as information processing, attention, and perception. The occurrence of information encountering requires divergence in information behavior. Divergent information behavior signifies divergent thinking. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize factors influencing the divergent thinking.

This research aimed to compare the degree of form and vocabulary match between user's subject queries (user vocabulary) and the List of Persian subject headings (system vocabulary) in two subject areas: 1) Agriculture (applied sciences); 2) library and information science, education, and psychology (humanities). The research population included the students at the two faculties of agriculture and education and psychology. Data were collected through observation and transaction log method. Findings showed that in subject queries carried out by students in the faculty of agriculture, the degree of "full match" was 30.9%, of "partial match" was 19.5%, and of "no match" was 49.6%; and in subject queries carried out in the faculty of education and psychology, the degree of "full match" was 37.7%, of "partial match" was 21.1%, and of "no match" was 41.2%. In the two determined faculties, more than 95% of the forms of subject queries accord with those various forms of Persian subject headings more likely used in natural language, including: queries with more than one word; simple subject queries; and subject queries including several words plus conjunctions and prepositions. There was no significant difference between the search language of the two facultie's students in terms of the degree of match between user's subject queries and Persian subject headings regarding vocabulary and form.