The two cultures: an examination of the factors inhibiting the provision of effective, library‐based information services to social welfare practitioners

This article stems from the work of the EISSWA Research Project, which has been using an action research approach to explore the information needs of social welfare practitioners. It is argued that the research carried out so far has revealed a significant area of information need on the part of this particular user group which is not being met by existing support services, and that the library‐based information services in particular have either failed to appreciate that this gap exists or, being aware of it, have not taken the initiative to respond to it. A possible explanation for this is put forward, special attention being paid to the cultural context in which information work of this kind takes place, and an alternative model is proposed by which library‐based information services could be adapted and developed to more effectively meet the information needs of their practitioner clients.