Youth Information‐seeking Behavior II: Context, Theories, Models and Issues

Mary K. Chelton and Colleen Cool both teach at the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Queens College in New York City, and both have been interested in the relatively new field of studies known as youth information‐seeking behavior for several years.

Besides going to their parents and teachers, where do children and teenagers go to find answers to their questions? When they have homework assignments, do they go to the school library, their schoolbooks, the public library, the Internet or a virtual library? What kind of questions are they asking? Are they having success at finding the answers, and if not, why not? These are only some of topics covered in this book. It emphasizes not only what children and teenagers are learning, but also how they are learning.

The first version of this book (2004) is a compilation of articles written about this field of study based on actual research that occurred during the 1980s and 1990s. It was then that teachers became acutely aware of the need for their students to find reliable and authoritative information on the web. Their need to set up a curriculum for their students to meet this new challenge led to a new field of studies called Youth Information‐Seeking Behavior.

The purpose of this new work is to give us a better understanding of this field of studies, inform us about what is happening now in this area and encourage a new agenda for the future. The work begins with an introduction; its ten chapters then delve into ten different areas of research. The results of some of these areas of research are also included. Notes appear at the end of each chapter, followed by a bibliography.

All those who are involved in the lives of children and teenagers such as professors, information behaviorists, teachers, librarians, researchers, computer specialists and parents will find this book revealing. Even booksellers would benefit from knowing, for example, what kind of genres teenagers are reading. Thus its appeal is to an audience wider than at first glance. It gleans the type of information that will help teachers, librarians and all those who work with children and teenagers become aware of the advancements in information retrieval. This is recommended for all school, academic and public libraries.