The emphasis in much information seeking research at the current time is on the social and cultural context of human interaction with information. This effort is highly desirable, but is incomplete. The model to be developed here has integration as its objective in two senses: 1) to provide a single model that incorporates both information seeking and searching within it, and 2) to integrate the social and cultural with the underlying biological and physical anthropological layers of human experience with respect to information seeking and searching.
The article contributes to conceptual studies of information behaviour research by examining the conceptualisations of information seeking and related terms such as information search and browsing.