Sixty years of measuring the use of information and its sources: from consultation to application

The historical development of use and user studies is characterized as divided into three “eras”: that of the Collection, the Document, and the Chunk. Typical concerns of each era are discussed. It is suggested that underlying the changes in measures was also a quest for measuring “genuine use” of information, that being the ultimate ends to which information found by users was put—what has been variously called the application, outcome, consequence or effects of information. Central to this has been a greater sophistication in methodology, including an increasing reliance on qualitative techniques to achieve greater depth. Results are presented from a recent content analysis of samples of 62 years of information behavior studies, showing a recent growth in measures of information outcomes. Suggestions are made about the further evolution of evidence in the light of the development of new types of measurements, such as those made possible by social media, and the limitations of such data are discussed.