Information sharing in academic communities: Types and levels of collaboration in information seeking and use

Research and theories of information behavior have traditionally focused on the "information man," i.e., on the individual as a seeker and user of information. The collective aspects of information behavior have been conceptualized, for instance, as consulting, informal seeking, use of person sources, and peer influence. These conceptualizations suggest a one-way process in which an individual consults another individual, however, information acquisition and filtering often is undertaken as a collective and collaborative effort. The paper develops a conceptual framework for the description of types and levels of information sharing in relation to document retrieval in academic communities. The concepts of strategic information sharing, paradigmatic information sharing, directive information sharing, and social information sharing are introduced to describe differences in the goals and purposes of information sharing in different groups and contexts of interaction