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Abstract

The Citizenship Information project investigates an area of growing significance and concern to public libraries in information service provision. Citizenship information and the role of information in helping the public to participate in the democratic process, in particular via electronic democracy, are at present highly significant issues, both for the information profession and for those involved in political life. Although there has been much comment on these and related concepts, there has been no attempt to gather evidence (positive or negative) as to the general public's interest in and need for citizenship information. Indeed, part of the project involved the attempt to achieve a better definition of citizenship information both in terms of the subject categories which it subsumes and of the respondents' perceptions of the kinds of information that might be connoted by the term. The researchers did not want to impose a definition on respondents but rather to develop and formalise one that would emerge from the data collected. This project seeks to investigate the extent to which members of the public in the UK have expressed or unexpressed needs for citizenship information, and to explore their preferred routes to the acquisition of such information. The project constitutes a piece of basic research, which would have implications for a range of information service providers. This paper reviews the theoretical and methodological approaches.

Date

22. 3.2002 8:53:04

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Abstract

This paper reports the results of a survey of information needs and information seeking behaviour of a national sample of the UK population. The survey was the first stage of the Citizenship Information project, funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre. In total, 1294 responses were received giving a valid and demographically representative response rate of 45.7 per cent. Major findings include: that the majority of respondents had sought information in the past (59.4 per cent) and that an even greater number predicted a future need for information (78.4 per cent). Over three quarters of respondents said that they would use public libraries and between half and three quarters would approach Citizens Advice Bureaux, Post Offices, Government departments or family and friends. Face-to-face communications and reading a book were the most popular means of accessing information, but a wide variety of other preferred options were cited. Only a small proportion expressed a preference for using a computer to seek information, and there was a clear emphasis on public libraries as an appropriate location for accessing electronic information. A highly significant majority (79.2 per cent) believed that access to information was very important for exercising their rights as a citizen.