Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar Enheten för biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap

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Taken for Granted – The Construction of Order in the Process of Library Management System Decision Making
(2010-09-14) Olson, Nasrine
This thesis is an empirically based, theoretical discussion of the process of decision making in relation to Library Management Systems (LMS). Although the conceptualization of the LMS decision process in rational terms, common in many LMS selection models, may be useful in different respects, here the process is viewed from a social constructivist stance. It is argued that due to the complexities involved, the potential choice of an LMS does not necessarily reflect the superiority of the chosen LMS based on objective inherent qualities. Nevertheless, libraries continually choose new systems and in many of these selection processes, the chosen system is perceived as the optimal choice. In this study, therefore focus is placed on examining the way in which this shared perception is constructed. Three theoretical views are adopted as the research framework, including Brunsson’s views on the process of decision making and its consequences, Collins’s views on methodological symmetry and construction of conceptual order, and finally Giddens’s views on duality of structure and the social order. Observations, interviews, and document studies are the methods employed in four different case studies that each lasted from 10 months to two years. In this study an array of different factors were found to be influential during the long process of the LMS decision making. It was also found that although the norms of rationality were striven for, and shared perceptions of rationality were constructed, the complexities involved did not allow a true rational choice by determination of all the options, projection of future needs, evaluation of the identified options, and selection of the optimal outcome. Instead, the different activities and happenings during the process helped construct a shared perception of the possible courses of action and optimality of the decision outcomes. Based on this study and with the help of the theoretical framework, it was suggested that an LMS choice is only one potential consequence of the LMS decision process; other consequences include legitimization, action, responsibility, and constructions of conceptual and social order. Through this study, the importance of the day-to-day actions and interactions (at micro level) and their wider implications for the construction of shared perceptions and shaping and reshaping of social structures are highlighted. This thesis contributes towards an alternative conceptualization of the process of LMS decision making. It may also have implications for the library practice, LMS related research, and educational programs within LIS.
Bibliotekarien: om yrkets tidiga innehåll och utveckling
(2010-05-20T11:14:51Z) Jansson, Bertil
Title: The librarian : about the early content and development of the profession Bibliotekarien : om yrkets tidiga innehåll och utveckling This thesis is about librarians and librarianship. Questions asked in the thesis are how the librarianship developed between 1475 and 1780 and what the core and the main tasks of the profession were. There is also the question whether the profession is built on a common basis to rely on and if it is characterized by unique knowledge. The history of the librarian is divided in three parallel ongoing parts, the practical, the visionary and finally the personal, the librarians own attitudes. The practical area is characterized by the practical work, as cataloguing, classification, care of books, shelving and protecting the documents in different ways from several possible threats. The work is dictated by the employer. The visionary part complements and develops the methods of library work being established in the practical area, the librarians themselves formulate their thoughts of libraries and librarianship, defines the roles of libraries in society, in education and research. The librarians think about the content of the work and the future of libraries. These two areas done, another dimension is born. That is the ethics of the librarianship, how to behave and how to act towards library users and this dimension puts the librarian in the centre. There have been signs of this before but the completion is done in 1780 by Cotton des Houssayes. His speech opens the future for the librarians to come. The time period covers 305 years from 1475 until 1780. Starting point for this research about the librarian is 1475 because in that year pope Sixtus IV appointed Bartolomeus Platina as librarian of the Vatican library. The bull of 1475 is an official document that describes the librarian as a librarian and that he is told what to do, where to do it, how to do it and why. Jean-Baptiste Cotton des Houssayes, appointed in 1780, sets an end to this period with his speech to the General Assembly of the Sorbonne university in Paris. His speech completes the creation of the librarian. It is also the starting point of something new in librarianship. The common tasks of the librarians investigated, reveal what can be regarded as the essence of librarianship. From the practical area, the employers gave the librarians their tasks, executed at different places in different kinds of libraries. From the area of visions, the librarians built their visions as a continuum of the experiences from the practical work. New areas like the role of the librarian, the goals for the library itself and the librarians as the executors and pathfinders for the future. More of theory became a natural part of the librarianship. The last area of the development of the librarian is to adopt ethical aspects of their profession. This dimension is a self-reflecting attitude important to the librarians themselves. Keywords: library history, librarians, librarianship, renaissance librarianship, library professions, library work.
Actors in Collaboration: Sociotechnical Influence on Practice-Research Collaboration
(2010-04-06T11:00:54Z) Ponti, Marisa
There has long been a concern about the research-practice gap within Library and Information Science (LIS). Several authors have highlighted the disconnection between the world of professional practice, interested in service and information system development, and the world of the academy, focused on the development of theory and the progress of the discipline. A virtual organization, such as a collaboratory, might support collaboration between LIS professionals and academics in research, potentially transforming the way research between these two groups is undertaken. The purpose of this study was to examine how sociotechnical aspects of work organization influence the initiation, development, and conclusion of collaboration between LIS academics and professionals in distributed research projects. The study examined the development of three collaborative projects from the start to completion in two countries, Italy and another European country. The data analysis aimed at deriving implications for the further development of theory on remote scientific collaboration, and for the design of a sustainable collaboratory to support small-scale, distributed research projects between LIS academics and professionals. The research design, data collection, and data analysis were informed by Actor- Network-Theory (ANT), in particular by Callon’s model of translation of interests. Qualitative interviews and analysis of literary inscriptions formed the key sources of data for the three case studies. The analysis of how and why collaborations between LIS academics and professionals initiated and developed revealed that the initial motivation to pursue collaboration has to do with the lack of economic and organizational resources on either or both sides, and with a genuine interest in a topic by both academics and professionals. The case studies in this study were decentralized and bottom-up projects in which LIS academics and professionals pursued collaboration because they had a genuine interest in a given topic and not because they were mandated by their employers, or they hoped to be acknowledged and promoted by them on the basis of their participation in the project. Market conditions and/or institutional pressures did not exert much influence on the start and development of these collaborations, although one project was influenced by political considerations and funding conditions in healthcare. The patterns emerged from the findings of the three cases underpin the development of a sociotechnical framework aimed at providing a better understanding of remote collaboration between academics and professionals not only in LIS but also in other fields affected by the research-practice gap.
Verktyg för lärande: Informationssökning och informationsanvändning i kommunal vuxenutbildning
(2010-02-19T13:14:55Z) Gärdén, Cecilia
In education today, self-directed learning is promoted as an ideal as opposed to teacher-led instruction. This approach is reflected in public inquiries, proposals, syllabi and grading criteria, as well as in schoolwork in practice. The approach has implications for various stakeholders in education, for example, students, teachers and librarians. Students at different educational levels are expected to develop their understanding of how to seek and select information, access, critically examine and understand different texts and their relations to other texts as well as produce their own texts in different contexts. Information seeking and use are key aspects of schoolwork and learning, and students are assumed to develop competence in information literacy. The thesis aims to deepen our knowledge of information practices in municipal adult education, by exploring the information seeking and information use associated with a specific school assignment. The theoretical framework used is a socio-cultural approach. In the study the following concepts have been identified as particularly important: mediation, sense-making, learning, practice, tools, scaffolds and interaction. From a socio-cultural perspective, the thesis explores 1) how adult students, teachers and librarians interact in information seeking and use in the practice of working with a complex school assignment, 2) what tools and scaffolds are used, and why, 3) how information is used by adult students to construct knowledge and make sense, and 4) what elements of information literacy emerge in the interaction around the assignment. To answer the research questions, a qualitative case study was conducted. The case study included 43 interviews, 30 observations and 17 documents, which provided in-depth knowledge of the interaction between individuals, practice and tools. Study results reveal an absence of interaction in information seeking and use in the educational context, as well as a lack of common references in the form of tools and support, leading to difficulties for the participants in achieving the results that were expected, according to learning objectives. In the tension between the school's discursive practice and the participants' self-directed learning, several critical elements of information literacy emerged, including the distinction between quantitative and qualitative information seeking, critical approaches towards information, knowledge of genres, the ability to identify and use various tools, and the ability to communicate conceptually about information seeking and use. The self-directed learning approach entails a number of challenges for adult students, teachers and librarians. These challenges involve building bridges between the rhetoric and practice of information literacy, developing institutional and social structures that facilitate and benefit the quality of interaction, creating common frames of reference for school assignments and clarifying standards and rules in the school context.
The National Library of Uganda: its inception, challenges and prospects, 1997-2007
(2010-01-08T10:33:31Z) Kawalya, Jane
There are several reasons why national libraries have emerged. In some countries, they were established as symbols of national prestige and status, while others feel that a modern country should have a national library. Given the economic, social, cultural and political conditions in the developing countries that affect the establishment and maintenance of national libraries, the numerous functions of national libraries need to be assessed from these countries’ point of view. There has been a debate on whether the developing countries should have national libraries and alternatives such as university libraries were suggested. This thesis therefore aims at gaining an understanding of the establishment and development of the National Library of Uganda (NLU) as an institution. The study tries to examine the factors that influenced the establishment of the NLU; the motivations, actions and roles of the politicians and the professional library community that led to establishment of the NLU. It also investigates the present conditions shaping the NLU after its establishment and how it in turn shapes the library environment in the country. I have chosen new institutional theory by DiMaggio and Powell, to analyse the reasons and process of the institutionalization of the NLU. The conceptual framework is drawn from Scott’s institutional change perspective who argues that institutions do not emerge from a vacuum, but borrow from previous institutions and to a certain extent displace them. Oliver’s pressures of deinstitutionalization provided the lens through which to analyse the political, social and functional pressures that triggered off the process of the institutionalization of the NLU. Additionally, I chose the coercive, mimetic and normative mechanisms through which institutional isomorphic change occurs as identified by DiMaggio and Powell. These helped me to analyse the institutional process and change in the library and information sector during and after the institutionalization of the NLU. The theoretical contribution is derived from adapting this theoretical approach which has for the first time been applied in a different context in the field of Library and Information Science. It has been used on the development of a national library in a developing country, Uganda. The study is based on qualitative research consisting of in-depth face to face interviews of twenty (20) library professionals, purposefully selected as they held a leading position in the institutions involved in the establishment of the NLU or were directly affected by its establishment. I analysed documents such as the Hansard to study the political process of the enactment of the National Library Act, 2003 and other legal and primary sources. I made some observation of four (4) public libraries to find out their state after the decentralization process. The findings revealed that the factors that led to the establishment of the NLU were the decentralization of the public libraries to the districts which weakened the Public Libraries Board (PLB) and the staff were to be retrenched; Makerere University Library (MULIB) and the Deposit Library and Documentation Centre (DLDC) have weak, outdated legal deposit laws and inadequate resources to perform the national library functions efficiently and effectively. The politicians approved and enacted the National Library Act, 2003 mainly to support the decentralized public libraries. During the process of the institutionalization of the NLU, the library professionals tried to imitate other national libraries which they perceived to be successful in terms of legal deposit laws. Other ideas such MULIB and DLDC to update their legal deposit laws and collaborate with NLU; MULIB to become the second national library; the NLU to house the copyright office, ULIA to be represented on the NLU Board were rejected. The NLU apart from the collecting and publishing the National Bibliography of Uganda, is still performing most functions of the PLB such as supporting the public libraries, improving the reading culture, and participating in adult literacy campaign with the support of the development partners.
I främsta rummet: Planerandet av en högskolebiblioteksbyggnad med studenters arbete i fokus
(2009-11-12T10:34:17Z) Johannesson, Krister
The purpose of the thesis is to investigate planning processes for academic library buildings and the outcomes of such processes. This is accomplished through a case study utilising discourse analysis. The main question is: How is a vision of an academic library implemented in and through a building? The case study is retrospective and focused on the building of a new library at Kalmar University, Sweden, at the end of the 1990s. During this period, technological and educational developments and general societal change transformed the context of library planning and made way for renegotiations of the librarian profession. A critical realist approach characterises the study of visions, processes and the analysis of the various functions of the building. Results reveal the proactive nature of the activities of the library director in Kalmar. Early in the process he formulated a vision in which he presents the library as an information resource, a meeting place between different user groups and a workplace intended to promote learning and knowledge. From a professional point of view, the vision implied a dehierarchisation of relations both within the library staff and between library staff and visitors. The vision was based on an interpretation of Swedish national educational policy, and architecturally manifested by an ambition to reduce the physical and psychological boundaries between library staff and visitors. The early formulation of the vision together with the clients’ use of architectural expertise facilitated the choice of architects. However during the process a need arose to anchor the decision in the library field. Efforts were made to address library expertise and to collect user comments from a broader academic field. Discourses concerning the university library as a workplace and a meeting place were especially evident in the strategies of the leading agents. The discourses uncovered in the study correspond to more general discourses which became prominent in society and higher education during the period in question. The library itself has met growing appreciation by users both from within and outside the university. The proactive leadership demonstrated by the library director in Kalmar was based on hegemony rather than coercion. This corresponds to contemporary tendencies. Hegemonic consent may persist even after changes in leadership. In Kalmar however, architectural solutions with insufficient support from the library staff have been reconstructed after changes in leadership. Future research on architectural planning processes may pay further attention to different discursive resources, social fields and the positions within them.
Crossing to the Mainstream : Information Challenges and Possibilities for Female Legislators in the Ugandan Parliament
(2009-09-15T13:10:35Z) Nalumaga, Ruth Ester Lydia
Just like in other national legislatures in recent years, women have increased in numbers in Uganda, owing mostly to the introduction of affirmative action policies. These measures are regarded as fast track approaches to counter previous historical injustices and imbalances. However, these developments, which also reflect transposition in the social positioning of women from a marginal and probably limited outlook, to a broader, public and visible status in the public sphere, come with various challenges. The constraints are attributed to lack of adjustments within the organizational norms and procedures. Thus the main questions addressed by the study are: What happens when this previously less represented group becomes part of the mainstream? What are the implications in information access, information communication and information use? How can this inform us about the overall process of integration and social transformation? What information possibilities can women exploit to gain a more central place in mainstream politics? One of the assumptions is that access to and use of information is essential to full integration and in occupying a dominant position in the political environment which would consequently transform governance. The thesis is based on qualitative in-depth interviews and observations of legislators and non legislators with strong connections to Parliamentarians’ tasks. The findings reveal that a legislator’s versatility, world outlook and social positioning within the Parliamentary structures greatly improves ability to acquire and use information and possibly a legislator’s capability to influence national policy making. Women face challenges at two levels; the social and political context. There are possibilities of change through their own network.
Personlig integritet som informationspolitik - debatt och diskussion i samband med tillkomsten av datalag (1973:289)
(2009-08-21T10:58:06Z) Söderlind, Åsa
The dissertation explores the field of information policy in a historic setting in Sweden, namely the early 1970s. At the time the question of privacy in relation to databanks, data systems and personal records was intensively discussed in all public media, starting in the fall of 1970 when a large-scale population census was carried out in Sweden. The political discussions and public debate resulted in the first Swedish data protection law, Datalag (1973:289), and was counted as one of the first of this type of national legislation in the world. The focus of the empirical study lies in the analysis of the lines of arguments, political reasoning and debates concerning privacy, data protection, information and technology in documents such as official reports, committee reports, proposals and parliamentary records and publications that were produced in the policy process preceding the new legislation. The public debate itself is investigated through the editorials and reports in the daily press of the time. A combination of discourse analysis and agenda-setting theory, as it is presented and used by the political scientist John W Kingdon, constitutes the theoretical framework of the thesis. The study is introduced with a discussion concerning discourse and language use in politics, and here Norman Faircloughs CDA, Critical Discourse Analysis, has been the main inspiration. Kingdon’s agenda-setting model contributes with an interesting theoretical perspec¬tive on the social and political context of the discourses under study. The research questions also draw upon library and information science and theoretical work within the area of information policy, with issues concerning notions of information and technology, for example information as a public good versus private good in the market, and information as a free or restricted/protected resource. The main findings of the study imply that the political discussion and debate on databanks and privacy were heavily influenced by a public-oriented discourse focusing mainly on governmental authorities’ own use of information systems holding personal data. The new legislation, datalag (1973:289) could also be seen as a tool that sanctions governmental authorities’ extensive use and dependence on new data technologies and automatic data-processing in building up the welfare state and the growing public sector. The discourse was also based on a mixed notion of the new technology, perceiving data technology mainly as the “big machine” which contains a vast amount of personal information. This, at a time when the technology itself was transforming rapidly from bulky machines to personal computers. The practical effects of this discourse could be seen, for example, in the serious underestimation of the overall use of automatic data-processing in society as a whole, the use of which the legislation was set to regulate. When it comes to agenda-setting the public debate together with the activities of different actors in parliament had a major influence on the outcome of the work of the commission of inquiry that was set up. The public debate affected how the problem area of databanks and privacy was considered, but the commission formulated the actual legislation independently, without interference or adjustments by the social democratic government.

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