Brenda Dervin, currently a professor of communication at Ohio State University, is a researcher in the communication

Communication

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

 and library

Library science

Library science is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the...

 and information science

Information science

-Introduction:Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information...

 fields. Her research about information seeking

Information seeking

Information seeking is the process or activity of attempting to obtain information in both human and technological contexts. Information seeking is related to, but yet different from, information retrieval .- Information Retrieval :...

 and information use led to the development of the Sense-Making

Sensemaking

Sensemaking is the process by which people give meaning to experience. While this process has been studied by other disciplines under other names for centuries, the term "sensemaking" has primarily marked three distinct but related research areas since the 1970s: Sensemaking was introduced to...

 approach (Ross, Nilsen, & Dewdney, 2003, p. 93). Dervin received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and home economics from Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, with a minor in philosophy of religion, and her M.S. and PhD degrees in communication research from Michigan State University

Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

. In 1986 she acted as the first president of the International Communication Association

International Communication Association

The International Communication Association is a non-profit academic association founded in 1950 as the National Society for the Study of Communication , whose members are interested in the study, teaching, and application of all aspects of human communication." The Association maintains an...

. Dervin reviews articles and also is on editorial boards for communication and library and information science journals.

Publications

• Dervin, B. (2003a). Audience as listener and learner, teacher and confidante: The sense-making approach. In B. Dervin, L. Foreman-Wernet, & E. Launterbach (Eds.), Sense-making methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin (pp. 215–231). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc.
• Dervin, B. (2003b). Information as non-sense; information as sense: The communication technology connection. In B. Dervin, L. Foreman-Wernet, & E. Launterbach (Eds.), Sense-making methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin (pp. 293–308). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc.

Further reading

• Neill, S. D. (1992). The dilemma of the subjective in information organization and retrieval. Dilemmas in the study of information. Westport: Greenwood Press.
• Ross, C. S., Nilsen, K., & Dewdney, P. (2002). Conducting the reference interview. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.

External links

• Sense-Making
• Sense Making references/bibliography