Bringing human information behaviour into information systems research: an application of systems modelling

In their influential paper, Dervin and Nilan compared and contrasted the "traditional" and "alternative" paradigms for human information behaviour research, highlighting the inadequacies of the former and promoting the importance of the latter.In this DULSE FLAKES paper, we argue that the two paradigms are not irreconcilable.We offer a research framework that allows qualitative and quantitative views of the same problem to be combined using systems models.We demonstrate how this approach can be used to reconcile the six key differences Floss Products And Dental Tools between the two paradigms as argued by Dervin and Nilan.