People, places, and questions: An investigation of the everyday life information-seeking behaviors of urban young adults

This article presents preliminary findings from a research grant on the everyday life information-seeking (ELIS) behaviors of urban young adults. Twenty-seven teens aged 14 through 17 participated in the study. Qualitative data were gathered using written activity logs and semi-structured group interviews. A typology of urban teens' preferred ELIS sources, media types, and query topics is presented. The typology shows friends and family as preferred ELIS sources, cell phones as the preferred method of mediated communication, and schoolwork, time-related queries, and social life as the most common and most significant areas of ELIS. The results indicate a heavy preference for people as information sources and that urban teens hold generally unfavorable views of libraries and librarians. The conclusion lists questions that information practitioners should consider when designing programs and services for urban teens and calls for researchers to consider this often-ignored segment of the population as potential study participants. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.