Pamela J. McKenzie

A model of information practices in accounts of everyday‐life information seeking

Many research‐based models of information seeking behaviour are limited in their ability to describe everyday life information seeking. Such models tend to focus on active information seeking, to the neglect of less‐directed practices. Models are often based on studies of scholars or professionals, and many have been developed using a cognitive approach to model building. This article reports on the development of a research‐based model of everyday life information seeking and proposes that a focus on the social concept of information practices is more appropriate to everyday life information seeking than the psychological concept of information behaviour The model is derived from a constructionist discourse analysis of individuals’ accounts of everyday life information seeking.

Purls of wisdom: A collectivist study of human information behaviour in a public library knitting group

Purpose – The authors aim to apply a collectivist theoretical framework to the study of human information behaviour and the construction of meaning in a knitting group held in a branch of a large Canadian (Ontario) public library.Design/methodology/approach – The research design was naturalistic and consisted of active participant observation of five knitting group sessions and semi‐structured interviews with 12 group members. Field notes were taken, and both observations and interviews were audio taped and transcribed. Field notes and transcripts were coded qualitatively.Findings – Information practices and contextual factors are mutually constitutive. The location of the circle in a public library, the physical characteristics of the act of knitting, and the social meanings of the activities taking place within the group, including the significance of gender and caring, are integrally linked to HIB in this setting. Findings are described verbally and illustrated through a model.Research limitations/impl...

Positioning theory and the negotiation of information needs in a clinical midwifery setting

Studies of everyday life information seeking have begun to attend to incidental forms of information behavior, and this more inclusive understanding of information seeking within broader social practices invites a constructionist analytical paradigm. Positioning theory is a constructionist framework that has proven useful for studying the ways in which interactional practices contribute to information seeking. Positions can construct individuals or groups of people in ways that have real effects on their information seeking. This article identifies some specific types of discursive positioning and shows how participants in a clinical care setting position themselves and one another in ways that justify different forms of information seeking and giving. Examples are drawn from an ongoing study of information seeking in prenatal midwifery encounters. The data consist of audio recordings of nine prenatal midwifery visits and of 18 follow-up interviews, one with each participating midwife and pregnant woman. The midwifery model of care is based on a relationship in which the midwife provides the pregnant woman with information and support necessary for making informed decisions about her care. Midwife-client interactions are therefore an ideal context for studying information seeking and giving in a clinical encounter.

Gaining access to everyday life information seeking

Abstract The discursive viewpoint adopted by many researchers who study everyday life information seeking allows for a shift in focus away from the individual as a unit of analysis toward a more general understanding of the broader cultural conditions within which individuals operate. However, the data employed by such researchers often consist of the testimony or observed actions of individuals. This paradox provides a point from which to reflect on the process of gaining access or entry to everyday life information seekers as research participants. This article presents the authors’ reflections on their experiences of conducting separate library and information science studies of three diverse populations: pregnant women, members of a self-help support group, and preschool children. The article’s premise is that theory and research practice are intertwined and that attending to issues of gaining access is essential for the development of both. Access is an emergent process dependent on the characteristics of the researcher, the participants, and the research context.

Communication barriers and information-seeking counterstrategies in accounts of practitioner-patient encounters

Abstract Although practitioner-patient communication has been studied in several disciplines, few researchers have applied library and information science perspectives to this form of everyday life information seeking. This article reports findings from in-depth, semistructured interviews with pregnant women and uses a constructionist discourse analytic approach to analyze pregnant women’s accounts of practitioner-patient information-seeking encounters. The analysis focuses on accounts of communication barriers and on the active seeking and scanning practices that participants described as counterstrategies. This article also reports on the ways that descriptions of barriers and counterstrategies contribute to individuals’ representations of themselves as information seekers.

Producing storytime : A collectivist analysis of work in a complex communicative space

Storytime programs for young children are ritual events in the everyday life of the public library. This article analyzes data from two such programs to identify and analyze the work carried out by program leaders, their adult and child participants, and other social actors in other settings (e.g., library CEOs) in order to enable the program to happen. The study builds on research on the public library as a physical space and on the library in the life of the user by describing the often invisible literacy, information, and caring work that goes into accomplishing social settings within the physical space of the library. We contend that the work carried out to produce storytime is both discursively bound and value laden and that storytime participants constitute an emerging discourse community whose work coordinates and is simultaneously coordinated by the ongoing creation and maintenance of its discursive boundaries.

Documentary tools in everyday life: the wedding planner

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze documentary planning tools for an everyday life project, the wedding, to study how “document work” is constructed in this setting.Design/methodology/approach – Using Law and Lynchs study of birdwatching guides for novices as a framework, nine commercially‐available wedding planning guides targeted toward the primary planner, almost universally the bride, were analyzed.Findings – As Law and Lynch found, part of a novices apprenticeship requires learning how to “see” in ways that are socially organized in and through texts. The paper shows how characteristics of birdwatching guides (naturalistic accountability, a picture theory of representation, and the strategic use of texts) are also evident in wedding planners, and how the very features that make these guides usable also occasion troubles for their users. Wedding planning guides treat the bride as a novice and instruct her in seeing wedding‐related tasks and times as amenable to management. However, planning a wedd...

Informing Evidence: Claimsmaking in Midwives’ and Clients’ Talk About Interventions:

Communication for informed choice is particularly challenging in clinical settings such as direct-entry midwifery, where the care model embraces diverse therapies and forms of knowledge.We identified three discursive moves (explanation, invocation, and evaluation) that Ontario midwives and clients used in making claims about proposed interventions. The analysis was informed by an understanding of communication as an interactionally situated and socially constructed interpretive practice. Both midwives and women called on the authority of biomedical discourse, but they also turned to sources such as women’s wisdom to support their cases. The flexible use of these moves afforded participants considerable latitude in accepting or rejecting forms of evidence as authoritative. However, strategies designed to empower clients in making choices could unintentionally serve to enhance the authority of the care provider. Talk about interventions brings into view both the knowledge systems and the broader relations within which regulated midwifery practice operates.

Boundary objects in information science

Boundary objects (BOs) are abstract or physical artifacts that exist in the liminal spaces between adjacent communities of people. The theory of BOs was originally introduced by Star and Griesemer in a study on information practices at the Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology but has since been adapted in a broad range of research contexts in a large number of disciplines including the various branches of information science. The aim of this review article is to present an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art of information science research informed by the theory of BOs, critically discuss the notion, and propose a structured overview of how the notion has been applied in the study of information.

The big gap remains : Public librarians as authors in LIS Journals, 1999-2003

Abstract Public librarians do not publish as regularly in LIS literature as do library school faculty and academic librarians, whose positions often require them to contribute and who consequently dominate the literature. Using content analysis, this study identifies North American public librarians who have contributed to LIS literature within a five-year period, from 1999 to 2003, and explores where they were situated, how many were male or female, how many collaborated with other authors, and how many contributed more than twice.