Carol Collier Kuhlthau (born December 2, 1937 in New Brunswick, NJ) is a noted educator, researcher, and international speaker on learning in school libraries, information literacy, and information seeking behavior. Her model of the Information Search Process (ISP) describes feelings, thoughts and actions in six stages of information seeking. The model of the ISP introduced the holistic experience of information seeking from the individual’s perspective, stressed the important role of affect in information seeking and proposed an uncertainty principle as a conceptual framework for library and information service. Kuhlthau’s work is among the most highly cited of library and information science faculty and one of the conceptualizations most often used by information science researchers. The ISP model represents a watershed in the development of new strategies for the delivery of K-16 library and information skills.
Kuhlthau received her B. S. from Kean University, Masters in Library Science and Doctorate in Education from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.[1] She held several teaching and library positions before joining the Rutgers University faculty in 1985 where for twenty years she directed the school library specialization in the Masters in Library and Information Science degree program that is ranked first in the United States by US News and World Report. During her tenure at Rutgers she was promoted to Professor II and chaired the Library and Information Science Department and retired as Professor Emerita in 2006. She was the founding Director of the [Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries] (CISSL) at Rutgers where she continues as senior advisor.[2] Her book [Seeking Meaning: a Process Approach to Library and Information Services] is a classic text in Library and Information Science in the United States and abroad. [Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century] written with Leslie Maniotes and Ann Caspari (2007) recommends learning environments where students gain deep understanding and also information literacy grounded in the Information Search Process.
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