Bates' Berrypicking Model (1989, 2002, 2005)
Linda L. Lillard, YooJin Ha · IGI Global eBooks · 2018
Bates' model integrated a biological and a socio-cultural perspective to argue that, in practice, information seeking does not follow a systematic search process but more commonly takes the form of “berry picking”, or finding information bit by bit using a range of sources. According to her theory, humans collect most of their information through passive, undirected behavior, while the remainder is generated using three types of behavior defined as monitoring, browsing and directed search. Bates argued that a process of sampling and selection that she refers to as “berry picking”, underlies most browsing and directed searches, and has evolved from traditional mating and foraging behaviors. The chapter discusses the diverse theoretical perspectives on which Bates' model is based, and its key contributions to Information Science.