Professor Ian Ruthven

Personal statement

I am a Professor of Information Seeking and Retrieval in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences. My research is focussed on the human experience of interacting with information, particularly on how people find information. This involves understanding how people seek information, designing appropriate interactive search systems, and developing human-focussed approaches for evaluating information systems. I have conducted this research in various contexts including health, migration, and cultural heritage. I am the author of, Dealing With Change Through Information Sculpting, a new book that uncovers how people respond informationally to major life transitions by examining our information behaviours – how we provide, seek, assess, share, use, deny, avoid, and create information – during times of personal change and explains the role of these behaviours in reconstructing ourselves following a life event. Working across hundreds of research studies, Dealing With Change Through Information Sculpting proposes the theory of Information Sculpting to describe how we respond to change and the information behaviours we use to create this response, explaining how we construct solutions to life transitions by a series of information behaviours that are used to gain a sense of coherence, purpose, and value in life. I am the chair of the Scottish Library and Information Council, the independent advisory body to the Scottish Government on library and information related matters. SLIC supports Scottish library and information services through service innovation, funding provision, leadership development, advocacy, and informative research. I also chair the Steering Committee of the Information Seeking in Context conference series, the academic home of Information Behaviour research.