Finding without seeking: the information encounter in the context of reading for pleasure

This paper examines nongoal oriented transactions with texts in order to investigate the information encounter in the context of daily living. Findings are reported from a larger research project based on intensive interviews with 194 committed readers who read for pleasure. The paper analyses interview responses that illuminate two aspects of the readers ’ experience of reading for pleasure: (1) how readers choose books to read for pleasure; and (2) books that have made a significant dierence in readers’ lives. The paper concludes with five themes emerging from this analysis that have implications for the information search process: the active engagement of the reader/searcher in constructing meaning from texts; the role of the aective dimension; ‘trustworthiness’; the social context of information seeking; and the meta-knowledge used by experienced readers in making judgments about texts. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1