Preface

Information we receive from and create together with our social networks isbecoming increasingly important. Social information has in many ways agreat impact on our information behaviour and there are many possibleangles and layers in studying social aspects in information science. Thisbook presents some of these angles. This book is relevant for various actorsin the library and information science field and will be useful for researchers,educators and practitioners while coordinating empirical research on socialinformation and by providing an overview of some of the present researchabout social information.

The aim of this book is to communicate current research looking intodifferent aspects of social information as part of information behaviourresearch in general and with special emphasis on the social media context.This is a growing line of research and we are grateful that we got thisopportunity from Emerald and especially the series editor, ProfessorAmanda Spink who asked us to edit this book.

In the process of working with this book several persons have beeninvolved. Special thanks go to all the reviewers who all did a splendid andvaluable work, commenting on the chapters. Their input has really made adifference!

A book project includes also a lot of practical work and we have had thegreat advantage of having a trainee, Annika Luoma, who has taken care ofall the details in finalizing the chapters before submitting to the publisher.

We would also like to thank Emerald publishing and Diane Heath,Virginia Chapman and Catriona Gelder, for the flexible collaboration on thisbook.

Finally we would like to thank all the contributors of this book forsharing their important work with us. Without you, this book would nothave been possible.

Gunilla WidenKim Holmberg