Information based on subjective opinion, personal experience, observation or memory (falling within the realm of life-writing sources) or organizational constructed accounts of events or experiences. This should not be confused with fiction sources as storytelling does not necessarily have to be fictional, but can contain a mixture of truth and reality. For example, one can exaggerate when giving details of real life events, in order to achieve a particular purpose or effect.
Published in Chapter:
Categorizing Blogs as Information Sources for Libraries and Information Science
Mark-Shane Scale (University of Western Ontario, Canada) and Anabel Quan-Haase (University of Western Ontario, Canada)
Copyright: © 2015
|Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-5888-2.ch475
Abstract
Blogs are important sources of information currently used in the work of professionals, institutions and academics. Nevertheless, traditional information needs and uses research has not yet discussed where blogs fit in the existing typologies of information sources. Blogs and other types of social media have several characteristics that blur the lines of distinction existent between traditional information source categories. This chapter brings this research problem to the fore. Not only do we examine why blogs do not neatly fit into existing information source categories, but we also deliberate the implications for libraries in terms of the need to consider blogs as an information source to be included in collection development. We discuss the opportunities and possibilities for blogs to be integrated into the collection development efforts of academic and public libraries to better serve patrons. In order to accommodate for blogs and other types of social media as information sources, we propose the introduction of an additional information source category. We suggest new avenues of future research that investigate how blogs are being used to meet information needs in various social settings, such as corporations, health care and educational settings (e.g., higher education, and schools). In this chapter, we develop a framework of how blogs may function as information sources to provide libraries with a better understanding of how blogs are integrated into the context of everyday information seeking. By grouping the ways in which people employ blogs to acquire information, we propose that blogs provide information sources along a continuum ranging from non-fiction to fictional information.