Abstract:
This study is in two parts, and examines the user needs for environmental information, mainly about the Auckland region. The first part is a user needs assessment using an anonymous questionnaire survey. The survey population was the staff of three departments at the Auckland Regional Council. The results of the survey show that respondents' information seeking patterns echo the findings of similar studies of the behaviours of scientists. The barriers to finding environmental information included: inability to find relevant material quickly and easily on the internet, lack of time to look, not knowing the best places to look and not being able to access some databases. Results to questions about information needs highlight an interest in the publishing contents of their own organisation, other territorial authorities, other regional councils and crown research institutes. The second part takes an existing bibliography of hazards information, and tests how easy it would be for a user conducting a search about natural hazards in the Auckland region to find the information contained in the bibliography, using some of the New Zealand search tools available to librarians and/or users. The results of this exercise highlight just how many places a researcher would need to check. The findings of this research have implications for local and regional government libraries, especially in the areas of user education and information literacy, marketing information professionals' skills and the development of the environmental information infrastructure.
