Information Behaviour:

Briefly, information behaviour means the way users seek information, the way they go about finding it and the way they use it. Again, users' information behaviour has two aspects: verbal and actual. Users' verbal behaviour is what they express, they like and they do. Their actual behaviour at the catalogue, in the stack area, in the reference room or periodicals room could be quite different. Here, they may be using the sources they have never mentioned as their preferences. For example, in spite of consistently getting a lower rank in opinion surveys, title part is still the most common and heavily used component of the library catalogue even in science libraries. Similarly, the information on users' preferences for information sources gathered through opinion surveys is not always validated in citation analyses which would discover what the users have actually used. Thus, actual behaviour could be different from their verbal behaviour. You are already aware that libraries provide different information services. These services are ideally planned after assessing users' information needs. While assessing needs, users' information behaviour is analysed. One set of methods is used for analysing their verbal behaviour and another for analysing their actual behaviour. Now you will understand that we analyse users' actual behaviour in use studies and their verbal behaviour in user studies. Having understood the difference between verbal and actual behaviour and between use and user studies, let us now know in the next sub-section, what different methods are used in these analyses.