As a doctoral dissertation in Library and Information Studies at Göteborg University in Sweden, this book has been published with the purpose of being defended at a public event. It deals with information seeking in the everyday life of research. Such an area of inquiry within Library and Information Studies is known as user studies. The overall objective has been to study the development of information seeking by researchers during their formation. The link between the research content and the acquisition of information has been considered meaningful. A label for a combination of this sort is a study of information seeking in context. The book is organised in the following way. The research objectives include the research problem, the terminology and the presentation of the empirical area of study, that is business administration. The study of the research literature deals with user studies, research on research and Bourdieu’s theories. The theoretical issues on method are a topic for reflection. The implications of a change of understanding lead to a change of method. Objectivation of the objectifying subject as well as my own information seeking efforts are included. The data collecting process and the analysis procedure are described. Research results are presented in three ways.Three researchers at different levels tell their stories of information seeking in their work. Analytical categories in research and information seeking are presented along two paths together with pertinent estimates on levels and intensities. At the end of both paths syntheses of intellectual and social assets are carried out. These syntheses are compared in the light of Bourdieu’s embracing theory. The appendices include abbreviations, term list, check lists and introductory letters. There are two indices: an illustration index and an index of persons and subjects. The summary reflects the given sequence of chapters.
Tillägg till andra upplagan 2004: Sedan avhandlingen publicerades
1999 har opponenten vid disputationen professor Reijo Savolainen kommenterat
den. Avhandlingen har recenserats av Catta Torhell i Biblioteksbladet
och av Svend Bruhns i Biblioteksarbejde. Mina egna presentationer
av avhandlingen har förekommit i Tidskrift för dokumentation
samt i the New Review of Information Behaviour Research. Ändringar
av och tillägg till texten jämfört med första upplagan är av mindre
omfattning.