Elfreda Chatman facts for kids
Elfreda Annmary Chatman (died January 15, 2002) was an African-American researcher and professor. She was known for her special way of studying how people look for information, especially those who are often overlooked. This included people living in poor conditions, older adults, and even janitors.
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Discoveries and Ideas
Dr. Chatman's research led to some important ideas, often called "theories." These include: Information Poverty, Life in the Round, and Normative Behavior. Because she also studied sociology (the study of how societies work), she came up with a method called "small worlds" to understand how people get information.
Life in the Round
This idea came from Dr. Chatman's study of women in a high-security prison. She noticed that these women lived "in the round." This means they focused mainly on their daily lives inside the prison. They didn't try to find out much about the outside world, because they couldn't control anything out there.
Instead, they cared most about things that affected them directly, like their friendships and daily routines within the prison. This helped them feel more in control. They formed a "small world" inside the prison. In this small world, the group's shared ideas decided what information was important. For example, knowing about an illness when medical staff weren't around was very important. But news from the outside world became unimportant. Dr. Chatman realized that in such closed groups, people might not look for information that could be useful if it doesn't directly affect their immediate "small world."
Information Poverty
Dr. Chatman also came up with the idea of information poverty. This happens when a group of people creates rules or habits that make them avoid information. Even if this information could be helpful, they don't look for it. This can happen when people live in "small worlds" where certain information is seen as not important.
About Her Life
Elfreda Chatman went to Youngstown State University, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of California, Berkeley for her college degrees. She also used to be a member of a religious group called the Sisters of the Holy Humility of Mary in Ohio.
Her book, The Information World of Retired Women, won an award in 1995. Dr. Chatman was also very active in the American Library Association, a big group for people who work with libraries and information.
She taught at the UNC School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for over ten years, starting in 1983. There's even a research award named after her at the university.
At the time of her death on January 15, 2002, at age 59, she was teaching at Florida State University.
Her Legacy
In 2005, a special group within the Association for Information Science and Technology named a research award after her. This shows how important her work was in the field of information studies.
See also
In Spanish: Elfreda Chatman para niños
