Information About the European Union in an Acceding Country : A Survey of Needs and Information Seeking Behavior of Public Library Users in Croatia

This paper presents an exploratory study whose aim was to investigate selected aspects of information needs and information seeking behavior related to the European Union (EU) by public library users in an EU acceding country. Research questions addressed the importance of European information for respondents, types and context of EU information needs, and various aspects of the information seeking process (e.g., information sources consulted, obstacles encountered while seeking information). The findings revealed a high need for information about the EU and relatively low level of knowledge about the EU among the respondents. The results indicated that respondents required different types of EU-related information, mainly for personal reasons because they wanted to better understand the European Union in general and its effects on their everyday lives. The majority of respondents preferred readily available sources to access EU information, such as the Internet and TV/radio. Libraries and official EU publications were rarely used. When searching for European information, the majority of respondents faced the same problems as respondents in long-established EU countries: they struggled with the large amount of information related to the EU and they had difficulties in where to look for EU-related information. This is the first study of EU information needs and seeking behavior in an acceding country, and the findings are expected to be of interest to European administrations charged with the development of effective communication policies, national authorities in EU candidate and acceding countries, and information professionals in general.