Serendipity and information seeking: an empirical study

“Serendipity” has both a classical origin in literature and a more modern manifestation where it is found in the descriptions of the problem solving and knowledge acquisition of humanities and science scholars. Studies of information retrieval and information seeking have also discussed the utility of the notion of serendipity. Some have implied that it may be stimulated, or that certain people may “encounter” serendipitous information more than others. All to some extent accept the classical definition of serendipity as a “fortuitous” accident. The analysis presented here is part of a larger study concerning the information‐seeking behaviour of interdisciplinary scholars. This paper considers the nature of serendipity in information‐seeking contexts, and reinterprets the notion of serendipity as a phenomenon arising from both conditions and strategies – as both a purposive and a non‐purposive component of information seeking and related knowledge acquisition.

[1]  Royston M. Roberts,et al.  Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science , 1989 .

[2]  N. Denzin.  The research act: A theoretical introduction to sociological methods , 1977 .

[3]  Roberto C. Delgadillo,et al.  FUTURE HISTORIANS : THEIR QUEST FOR INFORMATION , 1999 .

[4]  Steve Townend,et al.  Review of: Muhr, T. 1997. ATLAS.ti 5: The Knowledge Workbench. Berlin: Scientific Software Development , 2003 .

[5]  H. Klein,et al.  Information systems research: contemporary approaches and emergent traditions , 1991 .

[6]  Carole L. Palmer,et al.  Information Work at the Boundaries of Science: Linking Library Services to Research Practices , 1996, Libr. Trends.

[7]  Paul B. Kantor,et al.  A Study of Information Seeking and Retrieving. III. Searchers, Searches, and Overlap* , 1988 .

[8]  Paul B. Kantor,et al.  A study of information seeking and retrieving. I. background and methodology , 1988 .

[9]  R. Merton.  Social Theory and Social Structure , 1958 .

[10]  Paul B. Kantor,et al.  A study of information seeking and retrieving. II. Users, questions, and effectiveness , 1988 .

[11]  A. Strauss,et al.  The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research aldine de gruyter , 1968 .

[12]  James Rice,et al.  Serendipity and holism: the beauty of OPACS , 1988 .

[13]  Anton J. Kuzel,et al.  Standards of trustworthiness for qualitative studies in primary care. , 1991 .

[14]  T. Wilson.  Review - Computation and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices , 1997, Inf. Process. Manag..

[15]  P. Norton,et al.  Primary Care Research: Traditional and Innovative Approaches , 1990 .

[16]  Sandra Erdelez.  Information Encountering: It's More Than Just Bumping into Information , 2005 .

[17]  Richard C. Myerly.  Serendipity and discovery , 1980 .

[18]  Caesar V. Senoff.  The discovery of [Ru(NH3)5N2]2+: A case of serendipity and the scientific method , 1990 .

[19]  James W. Cooper,et al.  Anti-serendipity: finding useless documents and similar documents , 2000, Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[20]  Richard C. Myerly.  Real World of Industrial Chemistry: Serendipity and Discovery. , 1980 .

[21]  Brian Vickery,et al.  Faceted classification : a guide to construction and use of special schemes , 1968 .

[22]  Susie Cobbledick.  The Information-Seeking Behavior of Artists: Exploratory Interviews , 1996, The Library Quarterly.

[23]  Paul B. Kantor,et al.  A study of information seeking and retrieving. II. Users, questions, and effectiveness , 1988, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[24]  G. Fine,et al.  Three principles of Serendip : insight, chance, and discovery in qualitative research , 1996 .

[25]  Maurice B. Line.  Service and Self-Service: The Electronic Library from the User's Point of View , 1992, Essen Symposium.

[26]  A. Strauss,et al.  The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research aldine de gruyter , 1968 .

[27]  S. Erdelez.  Information encountering: a conceptual framework for accidental information discovery , 1997 .

[28]  D. Morgan,et al.  Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis. , 1983 .

[29]  S. Batley.  Visual information retrieval : browsing strategies in pictorial databases , 1988 .

[30]  Philip M. Morse.  ON BROWSING: THE USE OF SEARCH THEORY IN THE SEARCH FOR INFORMATION , 1970 .

[31]  M. Patton,et al.  Qualitative evaluation and research methods , 1992 .

[32]  Amanda Spink.  Study of interactive feedback during mediated information retrieval , 1997 .

[33]  Sharan B. Merriam,et al.  Qualitative research and case study applications in education , 1998 .

[34]  Roy Davies,et al.  The Creation of New Knowledge by Information Retrieval and Classification , 1989, J. Documentation.

[35]  Geraldene Walker.  Searching the Humanities: Subject Overlap and Search Vocabulary. , 1990 .

[36]  A. Strauss.  Basics Of Qualitative Research , 1992 .

[37]  T. K. Huwe.  New search tools for multidisciplinary digital libraries , 1999 .

[38]  Alastair Smith,et al.  Information Seeking in Context: Proceedings of an International Conference on Research in Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts, , 1999 .

[39]  David Bawden,et al.  Information systems and the stimulation of creativity , 1986, J. Inf. Sci..

[40]  Nigel Ford,et al.  Improving the "darkness to light" ratio in user-related information retrieval research , 2000, J. Documentation.

[41]  Jamshid Beheshti.  Browsing through Public Access Catalogs. , 1992 .

[42]  Maurice B. Line,et al.  Access versus Ownership: How Real an Alternative Is It? , 1996 .

[43]  Daniel B. Wright,et al.  Understanding Statistics: An Introduction for the Social Sciences , 1997 .

[44]  T. D. Wilson,et al.  Information behaviour: an interdisciplinary perspective , 1997, Inf. Process. Manag..

[45]  Paul Thagard,et al.  Scientific discovery and technological innovation: ulcers, dinosaur extinction, and the programming language java , 1999 .

[46]  John Koch.  THE WAY I SEE IT: Hardwiring Serendip: Give chance its due , 2001 .

[47]  Matthew B. Miles,et al.  Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook , 1994 .

[48]  Louis B. Rosenfeld,et al.  From Security to Serendipity, or, How We May Have to Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Chaos. , 1992 .

[49]  Ronald E. Rice,et al.  Accessing and Browsing Information and Communication , 2001 .

[50]  Martin F. Bosenman.  Serendipity and Scientific Discovery. , 1988 .

[51]  Peter Ingwersen,et al.  Cognitive Perspectives of Information Retrieval Interaction: Elements of a Cognitive IR Theory , 1996, J. Documentation.

[52]  유창조.  Naturalistic Inquiry , 2022, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[53]  Carol Collier Kuhlthau,et al.  A Principle of Uncertainty for Information seeking , 1993, J. Documentation.

[54]  Kenneth A. Cory.  Discovering Hidden Analogies in an Online Humanities Database , 1999, Libr. Trends.

[55]  Brian Boyd.  SERENDIPITY OF THE NEW , 2000 .

[56]  Gerard Hutchings,et al.  Exploiting serendipity amongst users to provide support for hypertext navigation , 1997, HYPERTEXT '97.