INFORMATION-RETRIEVAL AS SYMBOLIC-INTERACTION - EXAMPLES FROM HUMANITIES SCHOLARS

The disciplines of communication and information science have historic ally tended to ignore each other. Yet, if we view information retrieva l as a process of communication, much can be learned by applying a com munication, or interactionist, perspective to IR. This paper suggests the usefulness of one interactionist perspective, that of symbolic int eraction, to the study of information retrieval. Symbolic-interaction emphasizes that all interaction, including the process of information retrieval, is socially embedded and that meanings are therefore social ly constituted. From this perspective, two propositions are developed that indicate information retrieval is social interaction and the proc ess of information retrieval involves the construction of meaning, not solely the retrieval of information. Examples from an ongoing study o f information seeking among humanities scholars are used to demonstrat e the usefulness of this perspective.