The present book takes off from the perspectives, ideas and findings
presented in the monograph published thirteen years ago (Ingwersen,
1992). It reflects a further development of the cognitive viewpoint for information
seeking and retrieval by providing a contextual holistic perspective.
The quite individualistic perspective laid down in the former monograph
is hence expanded into a social stance towards information behavior,
including generation, searching and use of information. This stance is reflected
in the proposed research framework and, in particular, associated
with the further development of the conceptions of work and search tasks,
information and information acquisition, IR interaction and the polyrepresentation
principle. The monograph (1992, p. 123-201) saw IR interaction,
the individual searcher’s cognitive structures and the interface functionalities
as important phenomena for study. The present book ascertains interaction
as the central research issue in IS&R. The Mediator model with its
thirteen basic interface functionalities (1992, p. 203) now represents but
one of nine dimensions of our research framework. The monograph predicted
a ‘cognitive turn’ for IR and a contextual IR theory development to
take place in the time to come. The present book is/mirrors this turn and
novel theoretical perspectives.