“They don't know that we know they know we know” : A philosophical approach to complex information behaviors and digital limits

The human being and her behavior is complex. Research has shown serendipity and chance to play a great part in the scientific research praxis, still the complexity of human information retrieval is not fully acknowledged in modern libraries. This master thesis compares two different worldviews; the mechanistic and the organic. This in order to understand why information seeking today is increasingly linear when human information behavior is not. The way people believe the world to work reflects on how libraries and information seeking work. The mechanistic worldview, comparing the world to a machine, is rooted in humanity since the seventeenth century and is still shaping our world and institutions. Today databases and linear searches are pushing physical books off shelves to make room for computers and searching on limiting linear mechanical terms instead of complex human ones. This pattern often occurs without adequate questioning and online information is argued to be even more available to patrons than the physical library. This thesis uses complexity theory and philosophical method to broaden perspectives and question linear searches in scientific information retrieval. It aims to highlight the importance of complex information retrieval and physical browsing for scientific innovation and creativity. Erdelez's original information encountering method was used to obtain source material for philosophical analysis. Philosophical method and complexity theory is used throughout the text to analyze the linear worldview leading up to a joint argumentative summary at the end of every chapter bringing the text forward. The thesis contains a field study with semi-structured interviews with librarians at the Picture Collection, New York Public Library. This highlights the value of physical browsing through the strong criticism that arose from patrons when the library wanted to archive the unique and browsable research collection. The result of the thesis argues that the linear technological development in libraries with less physical collections, librarian encounters, passive information gathering and random information paths without underlying commercial drivers create more like-mindedness instead of innovation. This significantly reducing the possibility of interdisciplinary discoveries. A technical development that at an alarming rate shifts information from being sought by people, to people being sought by information. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science