Abstract The concept of information need is a core concept in library and information science (LIS) that describes the state of uncertainty or anomalous knowledge state that precedes a user’s information seeking behavior. Information need is, however, an intricate concept, and is only addressed in the LIS literature as some kind of elusive cognitive state. The present paper argues that the concept of information need may profit from a pragmatic and semeiotic perspective. The paper thus discusses the concept of information need through four premises that is formulated based in Peirce’s pragmatic semiotic.