Information retrieval process in food science and food sector in Turkey

Abstract

Information is one of the fundamental necessities of modern societies in today's reality. At the same time, it is a requirement for individuals to sustain their lives and to be in interaction with their surroundings, and for organizations to continue their activities and to protect their positions in the market in an increasing competition setting. Meeting the necessity in question is possible by knowing the way and methods for reaching information required by individuals and/or organizations. This process, which is the fundamental of information literacy concept, is related to the awareness about the information necessity of individuals and organizations for being successful in micro and macro levels. Information centers, and information services offered in information centers and information experts will create this awareness in question in the individual and society level without any doubt. Individuals and/or organizations display various behaviors about the utilization of information resources, channels and information access systems in the process of requirement meeting. The concept in question has a different content in each discipline which is called information seeking behavior. In this context, information centers, information services offered by information centers and information experts are responsible for determining information necessities of user groups and for designing information services connected. Information services designed according to information necessities of user groups will change information seeking behavior of users for certain. In this context, fundamental components, historical development, current situation in Turkey and the world of the nutrition science, and fundamental components and work processes of the food sector are determined in the context of work processes and scrutinized in the conceptual section of the thesis. Based on the addressed fundamental components, an application study was conducted on the academicians active in both food science field and organizations active in food sector. A separate survey was given to academicians active in food science field in the study scope, and another survey was given to organizations active in food sector. As a result of the conducted survey study, information requirements of the user groups, information sources and/or channels used in information access process, knowledge and usage levels of information access techniques, and difficulties faced during information access were determined. Our hypotheses developed based on the data collected as a result of the application study, "information deficiencies experienced during information requirement meeting process of user groups of nutrition science and food sector affect 'information searching behavior', 'information resources and channels that are used', 'information access techniques knowledge and use' unfavorably" and "nutrition science and food sector user groups experience difficulty in information access process since they do not know about information access techniques sufficiently" were verified