The Principle of Least Effort

"... most researchers (even "serious" scholars) will tend to choose easily available information sources, even when they are objectively of low quality, and, further, will tend to be satisfied with whatever can be found easily in preference to pursuing higher-quality sources whose use would require a greater expenditure of effort."

--Thomas Mann (general reference librarian at the Library of Congress)
from his 1993 book Library Research Models

Preliminary questions we are obliged to answer before we can, maybe, devise a truly original research question.

1) Is there evidence that what Mann is describing actually happens in the real world?

2) Why is this important? Why should anyone care?

3) Is this actually happening most of the time with most people?

His words, "most researchers" implies a percentage. Which is > 50%. Putting something forward as "a principle" implies a percentage closer to 100% than to 50%.

A genuine research question has to have an underlying theory

theory (proven and accepted)
hypothesis (unproven and still being actively debated)

For example:

"All volcanoes are the product of plate tectonics"

Therefore,

"This particular volcano that I am studying has its own unique structure and history, but it is all still explained by the theory of plate tectonics"

Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort : an Introduction to Human Ecology by Zipf, George
Publication Date: 1949
The classic by linguist George Zipf has had cross-disciplinary appeal.

1) Is there evidence that what Mann is describing actually happens in the real world?

Could Librarians Have Prevented a Death?
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2) Why is this important? Why should anyone care?

You have a brain tumor that needs to be removed or you will die.

Your head is shaved, clamped in place and you are anaesthetized, and they have already drilled a hole in your skull.

It is at this point in time when your surgeon is struggling to remember a key piece of information relating to the surgical procedure.

Your surgeon will spend no more than 5 minutes to seek verification.

After that it is back your brain!

Which information source do you want your surgeon to use?

Online Poll!

Google Scholar
Using a single search box, you can generated a retrieval list from across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Clinical Key

Elsevier is one of the largest medical publishers, and Clinical Key brings together into one bundled package all of Elsevier's currently published journals and books for the physician. It offers a Google-like search functionality to yield, for most searches, thousands of results in text, image, or video format.
UpToDate
A resource created to support clinical decision-making that is well-known in the medical field. In addition to a keyword search it offers: the ability to browse topics by specialty, clinical calculators, drug interaction monitoring. Everything is continually updated to reflect current knowledge supported by evidence-based research. Includes access to over 11,000 topics in over 22 specialties.

Conclusions?

1) The Principle of Least Effort, if true, is terrifying!

2) The selection of a starting point for research is profoundly important.

3) Is this actually happening most of the time with most people?

Everyday Life Information Seeking Behaviour In Relation to the Environment

So now you could create new knowledge by pursuing this question.

Using an appropriate methodology (interview, direct observation, et al) I will attempt to determine what percentage of a population's information seeking can be determined to be for disposable information and what percentage can be determined to be for reusable information.