One of the first and many aspects of the INFO 200 Information Communities class that resonated with me is that information communities can exist in any kind of institution whether it be formal or informal such as all libraries, schools, hospitals, the local coffee shop, pop culture fan club, sports clubs, and even families on a neighborhood block. In whatever community people choose to be associated with, they all come to meet, provide and share/exchange information together virtually online or in person. Seth Godin states in his book, Tribes, “Human beings can’t help it: we need to belong.” (Godin, 2008). According to Godin, tribes are also comprised of people with a shared interest and a way to communicate.” (Godin, 2008). Even when meeting someone for the first time at a social function and discovering that they share the same interest(s), it feels natural to want to share and communicate one’s knowledge and good feelings about that specific interest possibly becoming life-long friends in this process.
Although I’ve enjoyed creative writing at certain times of my life, writing reflective blogs on many of the topics of researching information communities, information needs, and information-seeking behaviors of individuals or professionals within those communities has been a learning experience in which I could develop and express my reflective thoughts while performing serious research on a health information community and express knowledge sought and gained in writing the blogs along with the information sources survey, book review, literature review and research paper.
Through attending the Panopto lectures, working through the class modules, and attending the guest lectures, I gained many valuable insights and perspectives on various aspects of information communities and issues they face such as: challenges to intellectual freedom and censorship, time constraints and/or limited access to print and/or electronic resources and technology, funding of services, professional training, and costs of operation.
Although this ties in with the reflection blogging and although there were occasions when I was pressed for time in reading and responding to other students’ class blogs, I gained valuable insights and perspectives into the kinds of communities they selected to research, the issues and challenges of those communities in seeking information and how the methods and thought processes they used to research their particular information community’s information needs, information preferences and information-seeking behaviors.
In conclusion, while I gained valuable insights by exploring and researching the information needs, information seeking-behaviors, and other important aspects of health information communities, there are areas that I would like to explore regarding health information communities in different sectors of the health field such as medical and/or veterinary university libraries. However, depending on what special, public, or academic library or information center that I ultimately work as an information professional, there are several guidelines or individuals that will inform my practice as an information professional. These include:
- Administrative personnel
- Patrons and/or community members
- Founding and guiding principles such as codes of ethics established by various professional associations including: American Library Association (ALA) and International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) (Garnar, M., 2015).
- Emerging trends and technologies such as iPad, PDAs, and “Cloud Computing (Abram, 2015)
- Lifestyle and social trends such as “Smart” device expectations, Information literacy, and Environmental and “green” concerns (Abram, 2015).
In one way or another, all of these individuals, groups, and issues will place demands on me as an information professional in all sectors of the library and information field to not only be aware of current social, intellectual, and environmental concerns, but to continually think ahead for my organization and for my professional development. (Abram, 2015).
References
Abram, S. (2015) Librarianship: A Continuously Evolving Profession, Information Services Today: An Introduction, New York: Rowman and Littlefield, p.44.
Garner, M. (2015) Information Ethics, Information Services Today: An Introduction, New York: Rowman and Littlefield, p. 291.
Godin, S. (2008) Tribes: We Need You to lead Us, New York: Penguin Group, p. 2-3.