A Review of Models of Information Seeking Behavior

Users' information seeking behavior is an important topic especially for organizations that seek to understand how users browse and search for information. Information nature is elusive and hard to describe given that different people use information for different purposes and different ways. This study aims at evaluating and reviewing information seeking models that have emerged in Information Retrieval (IR) literature. In this paper, the classic IR models are explicitly reviewed. Previous IR models are categorized into two main types reflecting its interactive and passive nature. A holistic model of IR is suggested to cover for missing points of previous models and to account for the interactive nature of today's social and dynamic information environment. The paper concludes with general observations on the current state of IR and how users' IR needs are changing with change in the IR environment.