As the reign of the e-book continues to expand, more emphasis is being placed on e-books within the academic community, particularly with the idea of e-textbooks. Conventional wisdom suggests that in the same way the e-books now hold a major share of the book market, e-textbooks will continue to expand until they are also the dominant mode of textbook publishing. It also would be expected that current students in colleges and universities, who are usually described as digital natives, would embrace this technology wholeheartedly, but indications from currently-available research suggest the situation may not be as clear-cut. Recent studies have focused on the perceived impediments to e-textbook use from the student"s point of view. Collectively, they provide some guidance for appropriate modification of the technology, and suggest ways in which libraries and instructors might market e-textbooks more effectively.

Now that digital information can be accessed anywhere, there has been a resurgence of interest in information encountering (IE) and the opportunistic discovery of information (ODI). However, no studies have attempted to distinguish between the task-oriented contexts associated with IE and the more diffuse and varied situations in which ODI occurs. The authors conducted a survey (n=48) of undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 25 in order to identify which mechanisms, formats, sources, and contexts provide them with opportunities for serendipitous information acquisition. Further, the survey was adopted to cover a variety of taskspecific (IE) and non-task specific scenarios (ODI). The results of this exploratory study confirm that both IE and ODI seem to be common among this cohort, but the mechanism of delivery and the format in which the information is presented impact the frequency of occurrences. KeywordsEducation, human information behavior, information encountering, millennials, opportunistic discovery of information

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This paper reports a portion of the results of a 2016 mixed methods study on the acquisition of legal information by members of the public. While information acquisition by health information seekers has been extensively studied, similar studies of legal consumers are almost nonexistent. Even less research has focused on incidental encounters with legal information. Based upon established models of human information behavior, and informed by numerous studies of health information acquisition by consumers, this study examined the relationship of personal, contextual, affective and environmental factors with frequency of legal information acquisition. In one phase of the study, an online survey was administered to 385 adults without formal legal training. Reported frequency of legal information searching and incidental encountering (IE) of legal information were assessed for significant relationships with personal characteristics and environmental factors. Age, income and previous experience with the legal system were associated with greater legal search frequency. Age, race and previous experience with the legal system were associated with greater frequency of legal IE. Exposure to multiple information sources and multiple mass media sources were associated with greater frequency of both legal search and IE. The study was exploratory in nature, but it serves as a first step in assessing civil legal information acquisition by American adults without specialized legal training. It also explicitly ties legal consciousness, and legal access, to information acquisition practices.

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This exploratory study applied models of human information behavior and health information acquisition to the acquisition of legal information by the public. A mixed methods approach, consisting of two sequential phases, was utilized. First, an online survey consisting of 45 multiple-choice questions was administered to a Qualtrics panel of 385 individuals without formal legal training who were at least 18 years of age. In the second phase, eleven individuals who met the same screening criteria were interviewed in order to provide additional elaboration upon and clarification of the survey data. In phase 1, frequency of legal information searching and incidental discovery of legal information (information encountering, or IE) was assessed for relationships with personal, affective, contextual, and environmental factors. Findings indicate that individuals who search and encounter legal information more frequently share certain demographic and affective characteristics with their counterparts in the acquisition of health information. Age, income, and previous experience with the legal system were associated with greater legal search frequency. Age, race, and previous experience with the legal system were associated with greater frequency of legal IE. Self-efficacy and vigilance were both associated with frequency of search and IE, though perception of the legal system was not. Subjects searched and encountered more frequently because of curiosity than other situational factors. The role of risk in search and encounter frequency could not be determined. Both exposure to multiple information sources and to multiple mass media sources were associated with greater frequency of legal search and IE. In phase 2, subjects were asked about their searches and IE experiences with legal information, and the role of legal information in their everyday lives, especially as compared to health information acquisition. Findings indicate that members of the public define legal information quite narrowly as tied to lawyers and courts, rather than rights and duties (even provided with a more inclusive definition), and often fail to relate routine encounters with the law to their larger understanding of the legal system. Survey findings were corroborated in terms of source choices, the roles of previous experience, self-efficacy, and avoidance-vigilance. The increased availability of legal information sources through the internet has made it easier for people to find codes and regulations, but has not made it easier to find the information necessary to assess more complex legal issues. Other emergent themes identified in phase 2 included the detrimental effect of attorney advertising and the perception of legal information as disruptive, in contrast to the embeddedness of health information in everyday life.