This paper discusses social science information needs and behavior. The first section describes the Bath studies on social science information behavior in the 1970s. The world "after Bath" is considered in the second section, including the development of large databases, information retrieval problems, and scholars' personal information collections. The third section addresses new conceptions in information science and practice, focusing on areas that suggest the need for re-investigation of social science needs and behavior, including advances in bibliometric methodology, changing the concept of the user to enlarge the perspective of information behavior to its context in the real world, and advances in information technology. Worldwide socioeconomic implications are addressed in the next section, including economic loss resulting from sub-optimal information infrastructures in developing countries, as well as problems in accessing information for practitioners in developing countries. (Contains 15 references.) (MES)