Authors:
- Describes in a conversational style how humans find and use information to construct new knowledge
- Based on Minsky’s frame theory how information is searched for and digested
- Links information science with evolutionary psychology to explain how humans think and search for meaning
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Table of contents (17 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Human Exceptionality
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
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Back Matter
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The Framing Solution
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Front Matter
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About this book
The book is divided into three parts, each with an introduction and a conclusion that relate the theories and models presented to the real-world experience of someone using a search engine. First, Part I defines the exceptionality of human consciousness and its need for new information and how, uniquely among all other species, we frame our interactions with the world. Part II then investigates the problem of finding our real information need during information searches, and how our exceptional ability to frameour interactions with the world blocks us from finding the information we really need. Lastly, Part III details the solution to this framing problem and its operational implications for search engine design for everyone whose objective is the production of new knowledge.
In this book, Charles Cole deliberately writes in a conversational style for a broader readership, keeping references to research material to the bare minimum. Replicating the structure of a detective novel, he builds his arguments towards a climax at the end of the book. For our video-game, video-on-demand times, he has visualized the ideas that form the book’s thesis in over 90 original diagrams. And above all, he establishes a link between information need and knowledge production in evolutionary psychology, and thus bases his arguments in our origins as a species: how we humans naturally think, and how we naturally search for new information because our consciousness drives us to need it.
Reviews
“…The book is significant not only for the field of information behaviour, but also for information systems design (if such design is to be grounded in an understanding of how user’s information needs emerge and can be identified) and for information retrieval…the book is highly readable and illuminated by many original diagrams that aid in the interpretation of the ideas. It is well organized, leading from theoretical ideas to potentially practical means for satisfying needs.” (T.D. Wilson, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Universityof Sheffield, UK, Senior Professor, University of Borås, Sweden, Recipient of ASIST Award of Merit, 2018)
“...The book explains the exceptionalism of human consciousness that calls for a deeper level of information searching than is provided by the computational approach to search engines. This thought-provoking book is pertinent for scholars and lay readers alike.” (Carol Collier Kuhlthau, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Rutgers University, USA, Recipient of ASIST Award of Merit 2013)
“Cole’s book exemplifies an ambitious and highly innovative contribution to the perennial issues dealing with information needs. He pioneers by advocating a consciousness approach to information need and belief-based search. Despite the difficult topic, the book is easy to read, thanks to enlightening examples and visualized examples.” (Reijo Savolainen, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Tampere University, Finland, Recipient of ASIST Research in Information Science Award 2016)
Authors and Affiliations
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McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Charles Cole
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Consciousness’ Drive
Book Subtitle: Information Need and the Search for Meaning
Authors: Charles Cole
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92457-1
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-92455-7Published: 04 October 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-06434-1Published: 03 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-92457-1Published: 18 September 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 247
Number of Illustrations: 37 b/w illustrations, 88 illustrations in colour
Topics: Computers and Society, Information Storage and Retrieval, Library Science, Cognitive Psychology, User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction