At the bottom of this blog post you'll find a link to the full text report (61 pages).
From the Executive Summary:
There are numerous user studies published in the literature and available on the web. There are studies that specifically address the behaviours of scholars while others identify the behaviours of the general public. Some studies address the information-seeking behaviours of scholars within specific disciplines while others identify the behaviours of scholars of multiple disciplines. There are studies that only address undergraduate, graduate, or post graduate students or compare these individual groups’ information-seeking behaviours to those of scholars. Still other studies address the behaviors of young adults (Screenagers (Rushkoff 1996) and Millennials)
Here's background on how the report was put together.
In the interest of analyzing and synthesizing several user behaviour studies conducted in the US and the UK twelve studies were identified. These twelve selected studies were commissioned and/or supported by non- profit organizations and government agencies; therefore, they have little dependence upon the outcomes of the studies. The studies were reviewed by two researchers who analyzed the findings, compared their analyses, and identified the overlapping and contradictory findings. This report is not intended to be the definitive work on user behaviour studies, but rather to provide a synthesized document to make it easier for information professionals to better understand the information-seeking behaviours of the libraries’ intended users and to review the issues associated with the development of information services and systems that will best meet these users’ needs.
The 12 studies used in the report in chronological order are:
Note: Direct links to the full text of each of the following reports are available on the overview page and in the report.
+ Perceptions of libraries and information resources (OCLC, December 2005)1
+ College students’ perceptions of libraries and information resources (OCLC, April 2006)2
+ Sense-making the information confluence: The whys and hows of college and university user satisficing of information needs (IMLS/Ohio State University/OCLC, July 2006)3
+ Researchers and discovery services: Behaviour, perceptions and needs (RIN, November 2006)4
+ Researchers’ use of academic libraries and their services (RIN/CURL, April 2007)5
+ Information behaviour of the researcher of the future (CIBER/UCL, commissioned by BL and JISC, January 2008)6
+ Seeking synchronicity: Evaluating virtual reference services from user, non-user and librarian perspectives (OCLC/ IMLS/ Rutgers, June 2008)7
+ Online catalogs: What users and librarians want (OCLC. March 2009)8
+ E-journals: Their use, value and impact (RIN, April 2009)9
+ JISC national e-books observatory project: Key findings and recommendations (JISC/UCL, November 2009)10
+ Students’ use of research content in teaching and learning (JISC, November 2009)11
+ User behaviour in resource discovery (JISC, November 2009)
The overview goes on to offer an executive summary and four primary chapters:
+ Summaries of Each Study
+ Common Findings
+ Implications for Libraries
+ Conclusions and Future Research
In these chapters topics discussed include
From Chapter One
+ Perceptions of libraries and information resource
+ Sense-making the information confluence.
+ Researchers and discovery services
+ Online catalogs: What users and librarians want
+ E-journals: Their use, value and impact
+ JISC national e-books observatory project
+ and Several Others
From Chapter Two
+ Google and Access
+ Changing User Behaviours
+ Content and Resources
+ Common Preconceptions Exposed
+ Non-Academic Users
+ and Several Others
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
