Inside the library: Academic librarians’ knowing in practice

Abstract

There is a dearth of studies on librarians’ information practices, in particular their information use. At the same time the professional field of librarianship is infused with an imperative dictating that the work of librarians should be evidence based. This paper presents an ethnographic study of academic librarians’ information use in professional practice. On the basis of the analysis, which is rooted in practice theory, it is concluded that in the academic library under investigation, information use is an ongoing practice shaped in and by the specific areas in which the work is carried out. Rather than primarily relying on evidence in terms of formal research results, the librarians in the study relate to and make use of a multitude of both formal and informal information sources.

Keywords

Academic librarians ethnography information use practice theory professional practice Sweden

Introduction

The interest in professionals’ information practices is long-standing within library and information science (LIS) where it is common to sort and review research contributions by occupational category (e.g. Case and Given, 2016). With few exceptions (e.g. Lindberg, 2015) studies that concentrate on the information practices of librarians are thus far scarce, which motivates the present study. What furthermore motivates the study is the widespread perception in the evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) movement (e.g. Dalrymple, 2011) that evidence equals ‘knowledge derived from scientific endeavour’ (Reynolds, 2000: 18–19). According to such a stance, evidence-based practice is a matter of gathering, assessing and applying ‘research results that are pertinent to questions that arise in the course of everyday professional practice’ (Dalrymple, 2011: 1790). According to this way of reasoning, the notion of evidence is emphasized as the prime basis for action. The ‘value-based label’ (Nutley et al., 2007: 23) of ‘evidence’ is presented as that which can be consulted in order to develop the knowledge needed in practice. Furthermore, there is an often accepted assumption, which dictates that evidence is independent of the context in which it is used (Nutley et al., 2013). There is, however, a plethora of research from various fields that argues that the practices of information seeking and use, as well as learning, necessarily must be seen as situated and inseparable from the contexts in which they take place (e.g. Lave and Wenger, 1991; Nicolini et al., 2003; Tuominen et al., 2005). Informed by this strand of research, the focus of the present study is on what academic librarians do in order to become, and stay, informed and knowledgeable professionals. The aim of the study is accordingly to produce extended knowledge about academic librarians’ information use.

In order to meet the aim, the following research questions are addressed:

How do the academic librarians in the study keep informed and updated?

How do they learn to do what they are doing?

The empirical setting for the study is a university library which supports research and education in the natural sciences. The library is part of a university library system serving approximately 40,000 students and 6000 members of staff. Prominent groups of users consist of students, teachers and researchers within, for example, the disciplines of medicine and nursing.

In addition to providing answers to the research questions, the study has also identified the main sources of information and inspiration consulted in the investigated practice. In connection to the findings, the paper also discusses how the participants’ collective knowledge base is sustained and maintained. As explicated further below, the aim and the research questions are addressed through the methods of participatory observations and interviews with academic librarians.

The paper is structured accordingly: after the subsequent section that reviews relevant literature, the theoretical frame is introduced. Thereafter is a section on methods, which is followed by the findings. The paper then ends with a concluding discussion.

Literature review

The literature review is divided into two main sections where the first is concerned with the literature on librarianship and the work of librarians. The second part contains an account for previous authors’ conceptualisations of information use.

The work of librarians

The observation that the competencies of librarians are broad and multifaceted is a recurrent theme in the literature aimed at elucidating and analysing the work and identity of librarians (Wingate Gray, 2013). To a high degree library work entails the ability to unite apparently incompatible ambitions and interests. On the one hand, emphasis in library work is on the management, organization and control of collections and, on the other hand, on the users and their needs (Bell et al., 2003). In a similar vein, librarians are supposed to cater for the individual library user (Irwin, 1949) at the same time as they are addressing the interests of the user collective (Shera, 1972). For academic library staff in particular it is a requirement to develop a pedagogical role and contribute to empowering their users and the development of their media and information literacy, but they should also be authorities in selecting material and provide collections that contain high quality literature (Pawley, 2003). In line with these contrasts and tensions, there is also the issue of whether the librarian should be expected to develop a specialised subject expertise or a more general competence suited to all sorts of user questions (Lindberg, 2015).

Inventories and mappings of the specific competencies of academic librarians indicate the roles and skills required for supporting the information needs of students and researchers, but what librarians do at work, how their knowledge and competencies are developed, shaped and maintained in the workplace, is not clear (e.g. Research Libraries UK, 2012; Swedish Library Association, 2009). Even though there is a substantial literature addressing the profession’s own status and future, the main research methods employed have been content analysis of job advertisements, surveys of librarians, often via questionnaires, and individual case studies produced from general knowledge of a specific sector of work (Cox and Corrall, 2013). The image of librarians and their work tasks in the library-based literature, as it is briefly reflected here, indicates that the competencies and work tasks in focus for library work are difficult to describe and capture.

Conceptualising ‘information use’

The concept of ‘information use’ is vague and gives rise to a great variation of definitions. At least partly, this is due to the concept’s dual potential capacity both as an empirical and a theoretical concept. From reviews of the concept of information use (e.g. Kari, 2010; Savolainen, 2009) it can tentatively be concluded that its conceptual vagueness is furthermore related to the concept’s vicinity to other core concepts such as ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’, and to the related activities of, for instance, ‘analysing’, ‘processing’ and ‘constructing’. In his analysis of the LIS research literature, Kari (2010) identifies seven major approaches to the conceptualisation of information use. A widespread empirically oriented approach is to conceive information use as the interaction with information sources where use implicitly is considered as a ‘subconcept of information search’ (Kari, 2010). Influential metaphors that are closely related to the activity of information use are ‘meaning-making’ (e.g. Kuhltau, 2004) and ‘sense-making’ (Dervin, 1992). These are in turn related to the notion of ‘knowledge construction’, which can be enacted through discursive action (Tuominen and Savolainen, 1997). Being described and discussed from both a cognitive and physical perspective, the various definitional approaches to information use that can be found in the literature reflect Wilson’s (2000: 50) definition of ‘information use behaviour’:

Information Use Behavior consists of the physical and mental acts involved in incorporating the information found into the person’s existing knowledge base. It may involve, therefore, physical acts such as marking sections in a text to note their importance or significance, as well as mental acts that involve, for example, comparison of new information with existing knowledge.

The conceptualisation of information use that is applied in this article acknowledges both these acts as interrelated aspects, but a fundamental dimension of the understanding of information use concerns its situational and context-bound character. In line with Savolainen’s (2009) analysis, the approach taken here is that information use is a practice, which becomes meaningful when ‘conceived of as an integral component of action’ (Savolainen, 2009), even though a result of this perspective is that ‘it may be difficult to identify phenomena that are specifically characteristic of’ (Savolainen, 2009) information use. A crucial issue, which has influenced the perspective applied in this study, is what the participants in the study actually do with information and how they come across it. Related to this issue of coming across information is what Bates (2002) describes as ‘modes of information seeking’. Bates distinguishes, on the one hand, between ‘directed’ and ‘undirected’ seeking, and, on the other hand, between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ seeking. The distinction between the first pair refers to ‘whether an individual seeks particular information that can be specified to some degree, or is more or less randomly exposing themselves to information’ (Bates, 2002: 4), whereas the distinction between active and passive refers to ‘whether the individual does anything actively to acquire information, or is passively available to absorb information, but does not seek it out’ (p. 4). The information-seeking modes that Bates describes with reference to these two axes are: searching, monitoring, browsing and being aware. Of particular importance for the present study is the mode of monitoring, which is described as ‘directed and passive’ and as comprising ‘a back-of-the-mind alertness for things that interest us, and for answers to questions we have’ (p. 5). Also the undirected and passive mode of being aware, described by Bates as ‘simply soaking up what is in [the] environment’ (p. 5), is closely related to the practice of information use, and hence of relevance for the present study.

Theoretical frame

The study is conducted from a practice theoretical perspective (e.g. Pilerot et al., 2017) which enables information use to be made visible. A practice is conceived as a set of interrelated, routinized actions (including linguistic statements); more or less established and shared ways of understanding the world; more or less pronounced rules (‘one must…’), norms (‘one should…’) and conventions (‘one usually…’); as well as the material objects people interact with, including the places they are located in. The relationship between actions and practice is reciprocal in the sense that actions shape practice which, in turn, gives rise to actions. Practices can thus be seen as (re)productive in character (Feldman and Orlikowski, 2011). By connecting, and viewing, practices as constellations that form bundles (Schatzki, 2002: 246) we enable analysis of information use as a practice intertwined with other, related practices in the bundle of practices. The work that unfolds in the library is accordingly conceptualised as a complex fabric of practices that are interconnected and in various ways bound up with other activities.

The bundle of practices that make up academic librarianship can be divided into integrative and dispersed (Schatzki, 1996) practices. Integrative practices are ‘the more complex practices found in and constitutive of particular domains of social life’ (p. 98) such as, for example, librarianship. Examples of integrative practices in librarianship include cataloguing, providing reference service, collection development and teaching information seeking. Dispersed practices are more general in character and can be identified in ‘different sectors of social life’ (p. 91). They appear in various bundles and can be exemplified with practices such as describing, explaining, controlling, examining, etc. Dispersed practices are assigned specific meaning depending on where they take place. They are, for example, given certain meaning when they are performed in the practice bundle of academic librarianship, whereas integrative practices carry specific meaning in themselves. The analytical distinction between integrative and dispersed practices is useful for investigating how certain actions are assigned meaning depending on the context in which they are enacted.

In this study, information use is seen as enmeshed in the bundle of practices (Schatzki, 2015) that constitute academic librarianship. The key idea of adopting the notion of knowing in practice is to emphasize knowing (and the use of information) as an inherent part of action, something that is ongoing, embedded in practice bundles and related to other actions. Knowing is enacted through peoples’ more or less mundane everyday activities: ‘it does not exist “out there” (incorporated in external objects, routines, or systems) or “in here” (inscribed in human brains, bodies, or communities)’ (Orlikowski, 2002: 252). Instead we view knowing and information use as continuous, fluctuating sociomaterial accomplishments that are constituted and reconstituted throughout the everyday work practices of the academic librarians.

Material objects constitute a fundamental dimension of practice in that they ‘appear as things to be handled’ (Reckwitz, 2002: 208). The capacities of material objects are demonstrated in more than one way: as reference points in conversations and projects, as entities that call for attention and thus bring different groups of people together (cf. Star and Griesemer’s (1989) notion of boundary objects), and as entities that give rise to questions and instigate further activities. In the latter capacity, material objects have been categorised as epistemic (e.g. Knorr Cetina, 2001), i.e. objects in the making, dynamic in nature and characterised by lack and incompleteness, and as such described by Knorr Cetina (2001: 191) ‘as much defined by what they are not (but will, at some point have become) [as] by what they are’. Continually developed and changed PowerPoint presentations produced by the teaching librarians constitute prominent examples of epistemic objects in the setting of this study.

We regard paper mediated documents as well as digitally mediated ones as material objects (cf. Hull, 2012). The already mentioned PowerPoint presentations, for example, belong to the category of material objects pertaining to documents of all sorts, which apart from paper-mediated documents include databases, virtual learning platforms and enterprise social networking services such as Yammer, which is frequently used in the setting under study. Documents and ‘texts contribute to what makes sense to people to do and […] they can indicate events and matters, to which people in different practices and bundles react’ (Schatzki, 2017: 134–135). Consequently, in the work going on in the library, documents and texts, and peoples’ interaction with these, offer us the opportunity to trace the doings of the people involved (cf. Smith, 2005: 170), which, in extension, allow us to elucidate how documents give rise to a collectively sustained, document-mediated form of coordination in which the practice of information use plays out.

In summary, the theoretical framework contributes to highlighting how information use emerges as a historically shaped, routinized practice, which is enabled by and intertwined with the materiality of the setting in which it takes place. Together with Bates’ (2002) notions of monitoring and being aware, the theoretical framework provides us with the lens through which we have approached the study object.

Method

In line with the study’s practice theoretical perspective and in order to address the challenge of capturing and understanding the information use of the participating librarians, the study has employed an ethnographic approach that serves to make intelligible the activities of the study participants as situated action. Such an approach conceives situated action as ‘an emergent property of moment-by-moment interaction between actors, and between actors and the environments of their actions’ (Suchman, 1987: 179).

Altogether 26 people work in the library. The staff is divided into three units, each comprising some six to eight people (Teaching, Media, and Customer Service). Regarding the issue of evidence-based practice, it should be acknowledged that the participants do not explicitly state that they work, or aspire to work, in line with the strategies and methods advocated by the aforementioned evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) movement. Individuals from all units, as well as from leadership, are represented in the data, which was produced through 50 hours of intense participant observations, resulting in approximately 40 A4 pages of field notes, and through the study of policy and steering documents. Furthermore, 10 unstructured interviews with librarians were conducted. Interviews and conversations with the study participants were conducted in Swedish, field notes were written in English, whereas direct quotations have been translated into English by the authors.

The observation was guided by a number of overarching ambitions. An emic perspective was strived for, which means that the observer was interested in the views of the work in the library developed and maintained by the members of the field-site, and the ways the members talk about their practices. Another ambition was to treat the setting ‘as strange’ in order to ensure that nothing was taken for granted by the observer (Neyland, 2008: 85). By participating in meetings, the observer did not have to rely on asking questions, which runs the risk of steering the activities going on. By listening and watching carefully, and also taking detailed notes, it rather opened up for the possibility of capturing things that were not anticipated. However, this strategy did not exclude walkabouts approaching specific people and asking them specific questions. It was found that the combination of these two approaches was beneficial for the production of data.

The themes structuring the presentation of the findings were derived in synergy from our theoretical framework and the empirical data. The transcripts and field notes were initially coded in order to identify the themes. Thereafter the analysis continued through constant comparative method (Corbin and Strauss 2008), which comprises a comparison of each instance assigned to a specific theme with those already assigned to that theme. The analytical process can hence be described as moving from descriptive to more theoretical levels. Throughout the presentation of the findings, excerpts from the data are used to illustrate and support the analysis.

Findings

From the analysis of the data there emerged five prominent interrelated themes that represent specific areas in connection to which the practice of information use is particularly intensive. We have termed these areas of knowing. In the data they stand out as distinguishable and prominent focus points in the work of the librarians. However, at the same time these areas of knowing are fluid and intertwined and seem to be going on throughout the work in the library. Their contingent character is reflected in one of the participant’s own words according to which an area of knowing could be described as ‘the kind of work that you always can slip in in-between other more discrete tasks’. It should hence be emphasized that areas of knowing are not necessarily as distinct in nature as it seems from this quotation. They should rather be seen as contingent learning objects intimately related to the practice of information use in the sense that they all seem to cause various kinds of information seeking and use.

Briefly described, the five areas of knowing are: (1) Time management and work organization concern finding out about events, planning and preparing for activities; (2) Curating information sources and services comprises learning and knowing about information sources and services; and (3) Watching people and their practices is about learning and knowing about people (e.g. users and potential users). The two final areas are closely related but differ in direction and focus: (4) Appearance management is turned inwards, toward the workplace community, and takes the form of the librarians almost constantly discussing and negotiating among themselves the role and function of the library. A specific feature of this area of knowing concerns a certain keenness on novelties, e.g. new methods, technologies and information sources that catch their attention and professional interest, which perhaps can be seen as a sign of them wanting to be in tune with and at the front of modern librarianship. The last area, (5) Convincing storytelling is, on the other hand, clearly out-turned, towards users and potential users, and is about persuading users about the usefulness and quality of information sources and services that the library offers.

Time management and work organization

This area of knowing can be described as a dispersed practice, which is infused by references to documents and information use. It concerns, for example, initiating and working in time-framed projects, taking budget issues into consideration, and documenting and reporting from finished and ongoing small and large-scale projects. The following rich and multifaceted excerpt from the field notes reflects a number of aspects of time management and work organization that are related to documents, information seeking and use.

They are discussing a specific database (a big anatomic digital book) and talk about the possibility to have internal competence development around this. ‘Perhaps we should send a requirement to the department of e-resources or another person and find out if we can get access to it’. ‘Are our planning days booked in the calendar?’ Someone will look out for potential venues for the planning days. ‘What shall we talk about these two days? We have had previous days when it has been slightly slow, nothing much to talk about’. Someone will also check how much money there is for this purpose. ‘When will the new teacher librarian start, this person will need to be introduced, perhaps under the planning days? Put the planning days on the agenda so that we remember to talk about them. We have not had enough time previous years to prepare for these days. The agenda for the days must be decided at least a month, three weeks before the days take place’. (Teaching team)

This passage originates from a regular meeting held by the team of teaching librarians. The whole conversation is characterised by three main features: timetabling; the checking up of details and the distribution of various tasks. Especially the two latter, but also timetabling, tend to seamlessly tie into the practice of information use; calendars are consulted, the agenda for the planning days has to be decided, the possibility of using an information resource of potential interest needs to be cleared. Information thus needs to be found, accessed and used. The perhaps most obvious example in the excerpt is how the acquisition of a new information resource – the big anatomic digital book – results in reasoning about whether they should arrange for internal competence development around it. But the passage also indicates how work organization and time management is giving rise to information use: looking out for potential venues for planning days, checking the budget, scheduling it in the calendar, introducing a new member of staff, etc.

Curating information sources and services

Already in the previous excerpt, which referred to the knowledge area of time management and work organization, it was possible to trace an activity that can be described in terms of curating information sources and services, namely the discussion about the anatomic book and the potential competence development that would be organised around it. The knowledge area of curating information sources and services does, however, emerge throughout the empirical data. In the following passage, we can see one of several instances where information (re)sources of various sorts are at the fore:

She tells me about how she has asked a previous colleague about suggestions for apps that maybe can be recommended to the researchers she is working towards. This previous colleague then recommended her to talk to another librarian, at another library, who mentioned a few apps. She mentions one of them, Feedly, which she has tried out. This is, she tells me, a common procedure: one receives a tip or hears about some resource and then one tries it out to see whether it might be suitable to recommend.

It is a reoccurring feature in the material, this process of receiving suggestions about ‘tools’, trying them out and, perhaps, including them in one’s own repertoire. There are also several passages in the material that offer close-ups of these instances when information resources are picked up, scrutinised and assessed:

At the computer screen in front of the librarian there is a Youtube video introducing the reference management system Zotero. She is considering using it in a teaching moment. She received a tip about it from a previous colleague. Since they are going to teach this module in a room with lots of technical equipment she says that she wants to make use of its [the equipment’s] potential, hence the video. But since she is not so knowledgeable regarding Zotero, she is now trying to learn more about it by looking at this video.

The above excerpt underlines that information resources are tested and that these instances of testing include information seeking and use of a variety of sources; in this case we see an information source (the YouTube video) providing information about another information tool (Zotero). Furthermore, it indicates that technology, in this case in the shape of equipment in a teaching room, can function as an actor providing affordances that contribute to shape the design of the teaching practice.

In the following and last excerpt relating to this area of knowing we do not only see how various information sources are assessed and discussed. It also highlights how documents constitute links between the past and present and function as reference points in discussions among the librarians:

They are discussing a detail regarding what it is that one of them actually wants to show the students. Conversation and argumentation regarding this issue. Pointing at and discussing the printout of a PowerPoint. Making pencil notes on the print-out. Talking, returning to the print-out. Discuss formulations. They are also talking about the assignments that they will give the students. Looking in the course description in print. Adding by pencil some details in the course description. Discussing what should stay in the course description, and what to get rid of. Talking about resources that they have recently tried out. Talking about different bibliographic databases that should stay or go. Comparing the selection of databases against previous experiences of how the students group is constituted, the mix of different disciplines. One is showing the others a web-page and asks if this should be used in the course.

The excerpt furthermore shows how the selection of information sources (databases) and services (teaching) are intertwined. Another feature that contributes to shape the work conducted by the librarians is the ordering of scientific fields into disciplines, which gives rise to the discussion about how the student group is constituted. The activities that center on the print-out of the PowerPoint presentation and the course description bring to mind the notion of epistemic objects (Knorr Cetina, 2001) where, in this case, the document functions as an instigator of continued activities focused on the conduct of teaching.

Watching people and their practices

The area of knowing, which we have termed ‘watching people and their practices’, concerns various groups of people that the librarians develop knowledge about. The subsequent excerpt functions as a starting point for unfolding this theme.

A certain activity that the teaching team has worked with for some years, [support aimed at researchers], which is a way ‘to reach researchers and talk to them about things that are relevant for them in their capacity of researchers’.

When the librarian describes the team’s work with a certain form of research support, she says that the team tries ‘to reach researchers and talk to them about things that are relevant for them in their capacity of researchers’. We find this kind of reasoning, where a service’ relevance to a specific target group is emphasized, well in line with the area of knowing in question. In this case it might not exactly mean watching, but the quotation implies that user groups’ needs and habits are payed attention to and acted upon – researchers and their work are in focus.

Even if the interest primarily is directed towards the targeted user groups of students, teachers and researchers and their practices, also other professionals that can be found in the library or in its vicinities are of interest, which we can see in the following field note:

It is mentioned that it was interesting to work together with the IT developers since it was clear that they had a different focus in their work compared to that of the librarians: ‘Does this really need to be here?’, the librarian could ask an IT developer and then receiving the answer ‘No, you are right, that is not necessary’.

In the above excerpt, it becomes visible how one and the same work task is conducted, but from two different perspectives of two different, but collaborating professional groups. However, the perhaps most pertinent examples of this theme tend to concern students, researchers and teachers as representatives of different academic disciplines that the librarians are exposed to and somehow need to navigate among. The challenge of teaching different disciplinary groups of students is frequently returned to throughout the data, and it is more than once stated that ‘medical students are the most difficult ones since their teachers have so very specific demands regarding the content in the classes’. This statement indicates an external force in the shape of the teachers that sometimes try to influence the content of the teaching, which in extension contributes to shape practice. A similar line of reasoning is visible in the following excerpt from the field notes:

I also ask about the subjects which her teaching (and work) is about; is it difficult to make oneself at home in the various fields of study? ‘Well, that is part of the job of being a librarian. I have had different experiences regarding this issue, some subjects are more difficult than others, like chemistry, it is so complicated. Nursing science is another subject that is difficult, but in another way: it is kind of vague because it deals with, for example, the experience of patients, no black and white, no right or wrong, no exact concepts and terms. What I do is that I ask the teachers in the departments if I can have a list of the thesis subjects that the students have chosen, I also check previous years’ theses, I ask for the study tutorials, the course descriptions’.

It is once again mentioned that disciplinary specifics can be difficult to deal with for various reasons. What is also highlighted in the quotation within the field note is that the librarians have developed strategies for learning about and getting to know about people. This particular person refers to some sort of pro-activity, which is about asking the teachers, in advance of teaching sessions, in order to find out about the user group’s interests. A final remark regarding the above excerpt is that the first couple of sentences actually touch upon the question of what constitutes the knowledge of a librarian. Being able to move across disciplinary borders seems to be at least one part of the answer.

Appearance management

The dispersed practice of appearance management comprises a constant discussion, occasionally turned into negotiation, among staff about what the library is supposed to do and which services they should offer in order to make the library relevant to its users and potential users. As is evident from the subsequent excerpt, appearance management can also include questioning the character of the existing services provided by the library:

Someone is posing the question: ‘What is the aim of the customer service? What are we supposed to do? We have the traditional stuff, but there are also new things emerging; who are we and what are we supposed to concentrate on?’. This person has found an old report produced by another library. Someone else asks the question: ‘what is written on this subject? Our service functions well but we can probably develop it some more’. (Media team)

The conversation seems to be somehow fuelled by and at least partly grounded in what is written on the discussed topic, which indicates its affinity with information use. There is also, in this passage, a reference to ‘new things emerging’. The frequent references throughout the data to novelties – often but not always in the form of ICTs of various sorts – e.g. active learning classrooms, apps and, as referred to in the following passage, UX (User Experience; see e.g. MacDonald, 2017), indicate a general interest in and curiosity about phenomena that are regarded as new and trendy:

To take the user’s perspective is a cliché that always needs to be filled with content. What is new with UX? Obviously there is some sort of strategy for UX, but what does it imply? (Media team)

We haven’t yet started with the UX model but we will go to a conference in Manchester that hopefully will mean that we are coming back from it with more insights. It’s a hot topic at the moment. (Media team)

As demonstrated in the above excerpt, the librarians are not particularly familiar with UX but, presumably, since it qualifies as a ‘hot topic’ they display a certain interest in adopting it, and their interest is certainly resulting in information use, both in the form of finding out, reading and assessing the information about the conference mentioned in the passage, and in the form of actually attending the conference.

The two passages from the data that are represented above indicate that the area of knowing termed appearance management is inextricably connected to the practice of information use. References to documents and information sources (e.g. the conference in Manchester) in these instances primarily function as reference points in the discussions. However, the conference, and most likely other material on this topic that the librarians have read or seen, is akin to the capacity of epistemic objects, which we have described as entities that give rise to questions and instigate further activities, for example further information seeking and use.

Convincing storytelling

In this section we are highlighting the strand in the data that concerns convincing storytelling where the main interest is directed towards the image of the library, and towards how it may be perceived as a valuable part of the university. In contrast to the theme of appearance management, which mainly is a matter of looking inwards at oneself, convincing storytelling is a matter of addressing others and thus outwards directed.

In the following excerpt we can recognize the area of knowing that concerns the watching of people and their practices since it emphasizes that the librarians need to display knowledge regarding how things are done in various disciplines. But it also highlights the need for the ability to convince the users that the library and the librarians are credible. It is a matter of instigating trust:

Regarding the credibility you need to display when you meet the users, so that they kind of trust you, it is important to know something about how different subjects are researched, the methodological part.

This area of knowing, the ability to tell a convincing story, manifests itself in a number of different situations. In addition to the above example, which concerns the physical meeting with the users, we can point at presentations that are formulated in writing as in the following excerpt where the involved people discuss the production of a document that is supposed to present the team:

‘Who is it for? Is it for the staff directory on the web?’ ‘There is a draft. Can we hear it now?’ ‘Yes, if I can find it’. Someone is joking a little about how it could be read by famous actors. Someone is reading aloud the draft. ‘Elegant’, very good!’ The author says that one can also make it shorter or modify the text. But the others say that it is good. They conclude, however, that someone will have yet another look. ‘But who is it that shall receive it?’

This brief passage allows for a number of observations. From the practice theoretical perspective on materiality, it can be suggested that the staff directory takes the role of an actor with a certain agency in this specific situation. It can be claimed that it through its mere existence contributes to shape the doings in the library. The involved people take into consideration the directory as a plausible outlet for their collaboratively produced text and thereby involve this material actor in the production of the document. We can also see an example of reading aloud as a means of sharing and engaging people in activities. When it finally is concluded that ‘someone will have yet another look’ we can assert that the document they produce assume the capacity as a connector between different temporalities. The document functions as an anchor in the area of convincing storytelling and ensures that the involved people can take up and continue the work at a future stage. The idea of an area of knowing termed convincing storytelling is also manifested in a rather explicit manner in the empirical data when the teaching librarians render their teaching activities as a ‘narrative [that] need to be seen to. […] We need to match the databases with the narrative and the content’. The ability of designing teaching sessions, where databases are aligned with the format of presentation, appears as convincing storytelling.

Concluding discussion

In the first part of the concluding discussion we return to and address our research questions. This is then followed by an overall conclusion, which is based on the addressed research questions.

Turning to the first question of how academic librarians learn to do what they are doing, our analysis has shown that they learn by doing things together with their colleagues. Even though this is a generalized statement it supports the theoretical point of departure of the study; doing things together implies both collective activities and the sum of individual contributions to common services and activities at the workplace. Furthermore, the study shows that the academic librarians learn by being aware and alert for things and information of interest for their work. Bates’ (2002) notion of monitoring, a somewhat passive but still directed mode of information seeking leading to highly situated information use, captures well this approach to staying updated and informed. In line with this approach, but in a more directed mode, we can also see how the data provides numerous examples of how the librarians constantly are checking up things – confirming, ascertaining and corroborating – by turning to a large number of sources of a wide variety. Even if it has not been so visible in the excerpts used for supporting our analysis, it should also be acknowledged that it is evident from the empirical data that the work of the librarians also provides more formalized learning opportunities. These comprise both fairly traditional arrangements such as conferences, courses and study visits, but also more innovative activities like journal clubs (e.g. Haglund and Herron, 2008) for collective reading and research use at the workplace, and job shadowing where individual librarians visit other interesting and inspiring workplaces for short periods of time where they follow the work of colleagues. Summarizing, we can conclude that academic librarians learn to do what they are doing by doing things together with colleagues; by applying ‘a back-of-the-mind alertness for things that interest’ them (Bates, 2002); by checking up facts, figures and other things on a routinized basis; and through formalized learning initiatives and strategies in the form of various sorts of competence development.

Our second research question concerns the issue of how the participants in the study keep informed and updated. It appears clearly in the data that their work practices are structured around and infused by a multitude of more or less formalized meetings. Attending and participating in meetings seem to be the main vehicle for staying up-dated, which also reflects the collective character of learning and keeping informed at the workplace. Talking, listening and looking are other individual and collective activities that comprise ways of keeping informed about things that are perceived as worth knowing. On this note it can be mentioned that the expression ‘keeping an eye on’ certain things or topics is frequent in the data. Reading is a constantly ongoing practice in the workplace, both individually, in silence, as may be expected, but also in many other modes, such as reading aloud from the computer screen, together with colleagues in formal meetings, or informally while, for example, talking to somebody at the desk. Just hanging out with colleagues, or socializing, is yet another way of keeping up-dated. This may be described as a loose and informal way of networking or simply helping each other to be aware, which, again, relates to Bates’ (2002) conception of different information modes. To restate briefly, keeping informed and up-dated goes on through attending meetings; through talking and listening to colleagues and other people, through reading on one’s own or together with colleagues; and by hanging out and being aware.

Not surprisingly, the ways in which the participants are keeping up to date is mirrored in their main sources of information and inspiration. Accordingly, people play an important role here; primarily colleagues in the library but also librarians in other libraries. Other libraries are also often referred to in the empirical data. It is a matter of the librarians visiting other libraries’ websites or they actually go on study visits or less informal calls. They also get to know of colleagues in other libraries through personal or more formal, professional networks. As a red thread throughout the data we see something that can be described as a ‘document infrastructure’, which consists of, for example, meeting notes, PowerPoint presentations, ‘activity lists’ that comprise fairly structured guidelines and memos for how work should be conducted, and other internal policy documents. To this can also be added the workplace’s extensive use of Yammer. Intertwined with this infrastructure, there is also a random fabric of documents in almost all sorts of genres that the librarians constantly and in a routinized manner refer to and make use of. The document infrastructure appears to be of great importance for sustaining and maintaining the librarians’ collective knowledge base. All the documents such as meeting notes, PowerPoints, instructions of various kinds and policy documents that are produced throughout the work constitute a supportive base of recorded knowledge that is altered, reproduced and reused. Apart from being socially sustained through informal, mainly oral, communication, the collective knowledge residing in the organization is carried and kept alive through the document infrastructure.

On the basis of this study, we can conclude that information use is an ongoing practice in the academic library under investigation. Furthermore, it has proven fruitful to conceptualize information use as knowing in practice. Not least since information use, as evidenced in our study, is inseparable from other practices that constitute the various areas of knowing. Information use is shaped in and by the specific areas in which the work is carried out. When viewing the three teams at the library through the lens of areas of knowing, it seems reasonable to suggest that the team of teaching librarians has a tendency to use information primarily, but not exclusively, in relation to the areas of knowing that we have termed ‘watching people and their practices’ and ‘curating information sources and services, whereas the other teams’ information use are more evenly dispersed over all five areas of knowing. Finally, we can conclude that although librarians are experts at organizing information and creating formal information-seeking strategies, their own information use is often highly informal in character. Being knowledgeable about and occasionally making use of more formalized ways of keeping informed and updated, does not reduce the importance of informal and socially dynamic ways of dealing with professional problems.

The librarians’ use of formal evidence such as research publications is tightly connected to and dependent on the ways in which the library work is organized. Initiation of new projects seems to result in an intensified use of information in this form of evidence. However, the participants’ conceptualization of useful information does not only comprise ‘knowledge derived from scientific endeavor’ (Reynolds, 2000: 18–19) but is, as we have seen in our analysis, far more comprehensive than that. The notion of ‘knowledge that works’ (Kvernbekk, 1999) turns out to better cover what is seen as useful information. Being so intertwined in and embedded in everyday work practices, it can be asserted that the practice of information use contributes to the local production of order, which indicates a reciprocal relationship between information use and the organization of work in the library.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Ola Pilerot

Author biographies

Ola Pilerot is a Senior Lecturer at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås. His main area of research interest concerns information literacies in academia and scholarly information practices. Among his recent publications are papers published in, for example, Journal of Documentation, Information Research, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Journal of Librarianship and Information Science and Library Trends.

Jenny Lindberg is a Lecturer at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås. In 2015 she defended her doctoral thesis, where the information seeking and the shaping of professional identities among library and information science students and novice academic librarians were investigated. Her current research activities focus on the professional information practices of librarians and on the development of public library services. She has previously published in, for example, Library Trends and Information Research.

References

Bates

(2002) Toward an integrated model of information seeking and searching. New Review of Information Behaviour Research 3: 1–16.

Bell Whitlatch

Bodner

Diefenthal

et al . (2003) Professional competencies for reference and user services librarians. Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), A division of the American Library Association. Available at: http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/professional (accessed 2 January 2017).

Case

Given

(2016) Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs and Behavior. 4th edn. Bingley: Emerald.

Corbin

Strauss

(2008) Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Cox

Corrall

(2013) Evolving academic library specialties. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 64(8): 1526–1542.

Dalrymple

(2011) Evidence-based practice. In: Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. 3rd edn. New York: Taylor and Francis, pp. 1790–1796.

Dervin

(1992) From the mind’s eye of the user: The sense-making qualitative-quantitative methodology. In: Glazier

Powell

(eds) Qualitative Research in Information Management. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, pp.61–84.

Feldman

Orlikowski

(2011) Theorizing practice and practicing theory. Organization Science 22(5): 1240–1253.

Haglund

Herron

(2008) Implementing EBLIP to stimulate professional development. Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries 4(3): 3–8.

10.

Hull

(2012) Documents and bureaucracy. Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 251–267.

11.

Irwin

(1949) Librarianship: Essays on Applied Bibliography. London: Grafton.

12.

Kari

(2010) Diversity in the conceptions of information use. Information Research 15(3): colis709. Available at: http://InformationR.net/ir/15-13/colis7/colis709.html.

13.

Knorr Cetina

(2001) Objectual practice. In: Schatzki

Knorr Cetina

von Savigny

(eds) The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London: Routledge, pp. 175–188.

14.

Kuhlthau

(2004) Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services. 2nd edn. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

15.

Kvernbekk

(1999) Knowledge that works in practice. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 43(2): 111–130.

16.

Lave

Wenger

(1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

17.

Lindberg

(2015) Att bli bibliotekarie: informationssökning och yrkesidentiteter hos B&I-studenter och nyanställda högskolebibliotekarier [Learning librarianship: Information seeking and professional identities among LIS students and novice academic librarians]. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Borås, Sweden.

18.

MacDonald

(2017) ‘It takes a village’: On UX librarianship and building UX capacity in libraries. Journal of Library Administration 57(2): 194–214.

19.

Neyland

(2008) Organizational Ethnography. London: SAGE.

20.

Nicolini

Gherardi

Yanow

(2003) Introduction: Toward a practice-based view of knowing and learning in organizations. In: Nicolini

Gherardi

Yanow

(eds) Knowing in Organizations: A Practice Based Approach. New York: ME Sharpe, pp. 3–31.

21.

Nutley

Walter

Davies

HTO

(2007) Using Evidence: How Research Can Inform Public Services. Bristol: Policy Press.

22.

Nutley

Powell

Davies

HTO

(2013) What counts as good evidence? London: Alliance for Useful Evidence. Available at: http://www.alliance4usefulevidence.org/assets/What-Counts-as-Good-Evidence-WEB.pdf (accessed 13 April 2018).

23.

Orlikowski

(2002) Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing. Organization Science 13(3): 249–273.

24.

Pawley

(2003) Information literacy: A contradictory coupling. Library Quarterly 73(4): 422–452.

25.

Pilerot

Hammarfelt

Moring

(2017) The many faces of practice theory in library and information studies. Information Research 22(1): CoLIS paper 1602. Available at: http://InformationR.net/ir/22-1/colis/colis1602.html.

26.

Reckwitz

(2002) The status of the ‘material’ in theories of culture: From ‘social structure’ to ‘artefacts.’ Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 32(2): 195–217.

27.

Research Libraries UK (2012) Re-skilling for research: An investigation into the role and skills of subject and liaison librarians required to effectively support the evolving information needs of researchers. Available at: http://www.rluk.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/RLUK-Re-skilling.pdf (accessed 2 January 2017).

28.

Reynolds

(2000) The anatomy of evidence-based practice: principles and methods. In: Trinder

Reynolds

(eds) Evidence-Based Practice: A Critical Appraisal. Oxford: Blackwell Science, pp. 17–34.

29.

Savolainen

(2009) Epistemic work and knowing in practice as conceptualizations of information use. Information Research 14(1): paper 392. Available at: http://InformationR.net/ir/14-1/paper392.html.

30.

Schatzki

(1996) Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

31.

Schatzki

(2002) The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Exploration of the Constitution of Social Life and Change. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

32.

Schatzki

(2015) Spaces of practices and of large social phenomena. EspaceTemps.net. Retrieved 2017-06-13 Available at: https://www.espacestemps.net/articles/spaces-of-practices-and-of-large-social-phenomena/ (accessed 13 June 2017).

33.

Schatzki

(2017) Sayings, texts and discursive formations. In: Hui

Schatzki

Shove

(eds) The Nexus of Practices: Connections, Constellations, Practitioners. London: Routledge, pp. 126–140.

34.

Shera

(1972) The Foundations of Education for Librarianship. New York: Becker and Hayes.

35.

Smith

(2005) Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

36.

Star

Griesemer

(1989) Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science 19(3): 387–420.

37.

Suchman

(1987) Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

38.

Swedish Library Association (2009) Universitets- och högskolebibliotek i förändring: Omvärldsanalys och framtidsscenarier [University libraries in transition: Environmental scanning and future scenarios]. Available at: http://www.biblioteksforeningen.org/material/universitets-och-hogskolebibliotek-iforandring-omvarldsanalys-och-framtidsscenarier/ (accessed 2 January 2017).

39.

Tuominen

Savolainen

(1997) A social constructionist approach to the study of information use as discursive action. In: Vakkari

Savolainen

Dervin

(eds) Information Seeking in Context: Proceedings of an International Conference on Research in Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts. London: Taylor Graham, pp. 81–96.

40.

Tuominen

Savolainen

Talja

(2005) Information literacy as a sociotechnical practice. Library Quarterly 75(3): 329–345, 376–378.

41.

Wilson

(2000) Human information behavior. Informing Science 3(2): 49–55.

42.

Wingate Gray

(2013) Locating librarianship’s identity in its historical roots of professional philosophies: Towards a radical new identity for librarians of today (and tomorrow). IFLA Journal 39(1): 37–44.