Sarah Fetzer Information Seeking LIS688: Human Information

Behavior Observation Week Behavior

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Introduction
Over the past week I spent approximately one hour in each of three medical facilities and
conducted an observation of Human Information Behavior. The facilities will be referred to as:
emergency facility, lab facility, and hospital facility in this document. In each section I will
further provide context for each of the facilities and highlight several memorable instances of
HIB. The text Looking for Information: a Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs,
and Behavior was used for reference throughout this experience as it provides HIB concepts and
models as well as a review of previously published relevant literature.
A Note About Identifying Characteristics (Names, Professions)
In the following notable instances of Human Information Behavior, those who somehow
made their names known have been assigned names though they have of course been changed. If
you are curious as to why, please see the next paragraph for further explanation. If a person did
not an any point offer their name (or if I happened to miss it) they are referred to by their
profession. If their exact profession is not apparent but a general profession can be assumed by
their particular circumstances, they have been assigned a more general profession. Finally, if no
name or profession were apparent at all, they were referred to by a particular defining
characteristic (e.g. the older gentleman, the man with the yellow hat). The function of all this
creative reaching is, of course, better flow in storytelling. I hope that it makes these observations
easier to follow and conclusions easier to reach.
All names have been changed to protect the subjects of these observations in two ways.
First, IRB standards require that the subject of observations for research must be stripped of
identifying information. Second, none of the subjects were ever approached for consent of the
use of their identifying information by the researcher. The researcher (me) wished to remain
impartial, and felt that approaching the subjects to reveal her purpose in observation to request
consent to use any of their identifying information would have significantly altered the outcome
of the observations.
Emergency Facility
The emergency facility was a 24-hour facility in an urban area. It was attached to a large
hospital and a series of private medical offices. The facility had a large reception desk with two
receptionists and around fifty chairs for waiting patients. Occasionally nurses would emerge
from an enclosed area to escort patients back to examination rooms. This observation took place
between approximately 8:00 am and 9:00 am on a Tuesday morning. I observed only a single
notable instance of Human Information Behavior during my time in this facility. Whether this
was due to poor observation skills on my part, the nature of a slow emergency facility early in
the morning on a weekday, or just bad luck I am uncertain.
A female who appeared to be in her mid to late sixties approached the professional
stationed behind the reception desk seeking information about a male patient named David.
David had been admitted to the waiting/treatment area for patients prior to the woman’s arrival.
The woman wished to join David in this area as soon as possible. The professional behind the
desk informed the woman, from this point forward referred to as Anne, that she was a
receptionist and did not have the authority to admit Anne to the treatment area. Before the
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Behavior Observation Week Behavior
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receptionist could continue the rest of her explanation, Anne became visibly upset. She tightened
her grip on her large handbag and set it heavily down on the reception counter as if to say with
her body language, “I will be staying here until you answer my question in a way that is
satisfactory to me.”
The receptionist, either unfazed or oblivious to Anne’s behavior, continued her
explanation that she would need to find a nurse who could speak with David and obtain his
permission to have Anne admitted to the treatment. Throughout the receptionist’s short and
practiced speech, Anne was clearly engaging in the practice of information blunting. She kept up
her protestations and constantly muttered half sentences consisting of “Well, I don’t think that...”
and “That’s ridiculous...” even as the receptionist went and found a nurse to speak with David.
Within three minutes, the door to the treatment area opened and despite Anne’s huffing, puffing,
blunting, and threatening to blow the house down in she went to see her David.
The thing that I thought was most interesting about this interaction was not necessarily
how Anne sought information, it was the outcome of that information seeking. Anne’s
information seeking process itself was quite simple. She approached the desk in the facility that
was clearly positioned for those who were in need of information. She stated her information
needs quickly and quite clearly. However, when faced with an answer that was less that
satisfactory to her, she immediately engaged in information blunting. She refused to
acknowledge the information that was being vocally presented to her at that moment. Despite her
obvious blunting through both her vocal protests and extremely limiting body language, the
processes already put in place by the emergency facility continued and Anne’s desired outcome
was achieved.
Anne likely came out of this information interaction with no better an understanding of
the process by which she was able to see David than when she walked through the door;
however, she was able to pass that barrier and see David all the same. This makes me wonder
how many times per day I might help a student or even a faculty member achieve one of their
goals without really imparting any information on them at all. How often do I do the same in an
information interaction? How often are any of us missing that “difference that makes any
difference?”
Lab Facility
The lab facility is a storefront operation located in a strip mall. It is dedicated entirely to
collecting blood and urine samples to send out to testing facilities. The lab facility receives
orders placed by doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals in other locations and carries
out tests. The facility employs receptionists, phlebotomists, and medical assistants. The facility
itself consisted of a check-in desk staffed by a receptionist, a waiting area with approximately
twenty chairs, a few bathrooms for urine sample collection, and a separate room for blood
sample collection. This observation took place during an especially busy time for the clinic
between around 5:30 and 6:45 pm on a Thursday afternoon.
A male patient who appeared to be in his early twenties wearing a baseball cap
approached the check-in desk. The patient inquired about completing a urine-based drug test for
a potential upcoming job. The patient was informed that drug testing hours at this particular
facility were only between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm and that his request could not be
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accommodated at this time. The receptionist insisted that the man would need to come back
during the facility’s walk-in drug testing hours. The man remained calm and clearly absorbed the
information but was still very insistent that he needed the test completed today. He stated that
this test was a prerequisite to beginning a new job on Monday.
While the man had reached a complete information stand-still with the receptionist, a
loop of venting was prevented was avoided when another patient stepped in. The third-party
patient was sitting in one of the chairs of the waiting area closest to the reception desk. He had
clearly overheard the conversation between the receptionist and the original patient. He wasted
no time in firmly interrupting and offering to look up a nearby facility which might still be
conducting drug tests on his smart phone. The receptionist completely ignored this interaction
and moved onto the next patron as the two patients retreated to a corner of the waiting room to
solve their information needs independently. This was everything I could observe of this
particular interaction.
I found this instance of HIB particularly interesting for a few reasons. First, the patient
took the traditionally accepted route of gathering information—he approached the receptionist.
He posed his questions in a way that made sense, and while he was insistent, he was never angry
or combative. Second, there was a clear case of information blunting happening going on here
but it wasn’t from the information seeker. It was from the receptionist. The receptionist stated the
clinic’s policy and was completely unwilling to attempt to offer the man any other avenues of
solving his problems. Surely a receptionist at a busy lab facility must be aware that other lab
facilities exist in the area? Surely a person who sits in front of a computer checking in people for
the entirety of their shift could apply their talents to Google for a client in need? But perhaps I
am thinking more like a librarian than a receptionist. Perhaps, what is from my perspective,
blunting someone else’s need for information, is from her perspective simply beyond her job
description. Finally, I found it interesting that another patient, with absolutely nothing to gain
from this interaction, was willing to insert themselves to find a solution to a problem. The third-
party patient proved to be an information flaunter in the most helpful way.
A female patient who appeared to be in her early twenties approached the reception desk
and waited in a short line to be checked in. In preparation, she pulled her driver’s license out of
her purse and crumpled piece of blue paper out of her pocket. Upon being checked in the patient
apologized to the receptionist for the condition of the doctor’s order for the bloodwork. She told
the receptionist that she had a hard time keeping track of the paper bloodwork orders given to her
by the doctor. The receptionist reassured the patient that the condition of the bloodwork order
was fine but that if she was having trouble with it, she could always ask her doctor to fax the
work order directly to the clinic. The patient was very happy to be presented with a solution to a
problem that she had already been resigned to deal with in silence. The patient stood for a
moment at the desk and programmed the fax number provided by the receptionist into her smart
phone.
This instance of HIB stood out to me, despite its short and smooth occurrence, for a
single reason. It was an instance of HIB that solved a problem without a direct request. The
information seeker was only seeking to be checked into the clinic for a procedure and based on a
single comment about a difficulty with keeping up with paperwork, the receptionist was able to
solve an ongoing problem for the information seeker. The more I think about it, the more I am
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unsure of whether or not this counts as “serendipitous” HIB. The seeker was indeed already
looking for information, but she wasn’t necessarily looking for this particular bit of information.
That seems serendipitous enough to me; however, is it serendipity if someone discovers a bit of
policy that was already in place? I’m not sure that I know enough about HIB at this point to
answer this question.
A phlebotomist entered the waiting room from the procedure area searching for a
particular patient. He called the patient’s last name loudly out into the room. Before he could get
the patient’s name fully out of his mouth “SMITH,” a young man stood up and approached the
phlebotomist. The young man, before allowing the phlebotomist to speak promptly informed the
phlebotomist, and consequently the entirety of the room, precisely the test that he was having
done that day. The name of the test has been omitted here to preserve Mr. Smith’s privacy.
Mr. Smith then went on to inform the phlebotomist, and again everyone in the waiting
area of his particular needs as a patient. Mr. Smith has a fear of needles. Mr. Smith likes to be in
a reclining position to have his blood drawn. Mr. Smith has made sure that he is a particularly
well hydrated individual today to make sure that the phlebotomist’s job is as easy as possible.
Mr. Smith may feel faint after the procedure and needs a place to recover briefly.
Though I could see the phlebotomist fighting the urge to roll his eyes every time Mr.
Smith opened his mouth, he was also taking a few notes. Some of what Mr. Smith was saying
was clearly going to be helpful to him. The other people in the waiting room however, had
different reactions. I saw varying emotional reactions to Mr. Smith’s monologue ranging from
boredom to indignation to outright anger. Mr. Smith was being an information flaunter in an
incredibly annoying way, but he was also breaking a fundamental information rule in our society.
He was flaunting information, in public, about his personal health. We live in a society where
illnesses and personal health information are considered so private that we have laws which are
constantly revised and argued about just to protect our health information. Breaching doctor-
patient confidentiality will get you fired or worse and Mr. Smith had chosen to share a great deal
of health information with a room full of strangers. The effects of this act of information
flaunting, though fleeting, were extremely interesting as reflected in the faces of a room full of
observers.

Hospital Facility
My observations in the “hospital facility” take place in two different rooms of a large urban
hospital. The first room is a waiting center for comfortable chairs designed for patients and
friends and family members to wait in until patients can be called in to be checked in and have
their insurance and methods of payment verified. The room is large and well-lit with both chairs
and couches to accommodate up to around seventy or so waiting people. It is not an emergency
facility and as no patients at this time had been admitted to the hospital it was difficult to tell
who was a patient and who was a family member or friend. This observation took place on a
Wednesday morning between 8:00 am and 9:30 am.
The facility was fairly empty during this time and all remained quiet as patients were called into
private offices to have their insurance verified and be checked in for procedures with the
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exception of one notable interest of HIB. Unfortunately, it was not purely an observation as this
was quickly an instance of HIB in which I would become involved. An elderly man who
appeared to be in his seventies found a keyring with several sets of keys on it sitting on an
otherwise empty table towards the left side of the room. Included in the set of keys was the key
fob and key to a car. The elderly man immediately became distressed by his discovery of the
unattended keys. Though I was trying to make myself as unapproachable as possible, as I too
was waiting on a medical procedure, the elderly man immediately targeted me from across a
nearly empty waiting room and approached me.
“Are these your keys?” The man asked me as I was sitting in my seat waiting to be called back
and checked in. “No, they are not.” I replied, trying to blunt his request for assistance as much as
possible. “What should we do about this?” He immediately had turned to me for instruction in
his journey. I was completely blown away by his request. I was feeling far from my most
approachable. I was not in the mood to help someone solve a problem that had absolutely no
impact on me, but it was clear that this man was feeling helpless and I needed to find a way to
help him. I took the keys from him and guided him toward the check-in desk. I asked the
receptionist if there was a lost and found that we could leave the keys in. She informed me that
security would handle the lost keys and that she would call them for us. The elderly man seemed
immediately relieved upon finding out this information, and I was able to go back to sitting in a
chair and nervously awaiting my medical procedure.
This interaction really made me think about approachability and Human Information Behavior.
Often, when we’re searching for information and we feel lost or overwhelmed we try to search
for someone who seems approachable. To a septuagenarian man in an almost empty waiting
room, apparently, I was the most approachable seeming information source within a reasonable
distance. This made me consider how I choose “approachable information sources.” I find that I
often choose women as more approachable information sources than men. Is this because I,
myself, am a woman, or is it because growing up my mother was always overwhelmingly the
more reliable information source than my father? How do our personal experiences drive our
HIB, and how, as librarians, can we account for this when trying to reach out to our users and
provide them with the best, most approachable information sources possible.
Sarah Fetzer Information Seeking LIS688: Human Information
Behavior Observation Week Behavior
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References
Case, Donald Owen, and Lisa M. Given. Looking for Information: a Survey of Research on
Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior. 4th ed., Emerald, 2016.