| 1. |
- Lassi, Monica
(författare)
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Facilitating collaboration : exploring a socio-technical approach to the design of a collaboratory for Library and Information Science
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis explores the potential of one way of facilitating and stimulating collaboration in Library and Information Science (LIS), through a specific scientific collaboration activity: creating, sharing and reusing data collection instruments, such as interview guides, questionnaires, and observation protocols. The four studies reported in the thesis can be read as a linear narrative, each study building on the previous and contributing to the following ones. Together the four studies describe the process exploring social and contextual aspects of LIS; developing requirements and designing a working prototype collaboratory; and evaluating how the prototype collaboratory was perceived by LIS professionals. Overall, the results show that whereas the benefits of an LIS collaboratory reported by the study participants focused on the greater good for LIS, the challenges reported focused on the individuals’ perspectives. Hence, a tension exists between supporting the greater good, and challenges for individuals concerning sharing and reusing data collection instruments in an LIS collaboratory. The thesis emphasizes the implications for the LIS discipline when new ways of working with data collection instruments would be introduced; the implications of addressing needs of a diverse target audience; and the implications for further design iterations of an LIS collaboratory, including rewarding contributions, and ensuring quality content in a collaboratory.
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| 2. |
- Ahlgren, Per
(författare)
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The effects of indexing strategy-query term combination on retrieval effectiveness in a Swedish full text database
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with Swedish full text retrieval and the problem of morphological variation of query terms in the document database. The study is an information retrieval experiment with a test collection. While no Swedish test collection was available, such a collection was constructed. It consists of a document database containing 161,336 news articles, and 52 topics with four-graded (0, 1, 2, 3) relevance assessments. The effects of indexing strategy-query term combination on retrieval effectiveness were studied. Three of five tested methods involved indexing strategies that used conflation, in the form of normalization. Further, two of these three combinations used indexing strategies that employed compound splitting. Normalization and compound splitting were performed by SWETWOL, a morphological analyzer for the Swedish language. A fourth combination attempted to group related terms by right hand truncation of query terms. A search expert performed the truncation. The four combinations were compared to each other and to a baseline combination, where no attempt was made to counteract the problem of morphological variation of query terms in the document database. Two situations were examined in the evaluation: the binary relevance situation and the multiple degree relevance situation. With regard to the binary relevance situation, where the three (positive) relevance degrees (1, 2, 3) were merged into one, and where precision was used as evaluation measure, the four alternative combinations outperformed the baseline. The best performing combination was the combination that used truncation. This combination performed better than or equal to a median precision value for 41 of the 52 topics. One reason for the relatively good performance of the truncation combination was the capacity of its queries to retrieve different parts of speech. In the multiple degree relevance situation, where the three (positive) relevance degrees were retained, retrieval effectiveness was taken to be the accumulated gain the user receives by examining the retrieval result up to given positions. The evaluation measure used was nDCG (normalized cumulated gain with discount). This measure credits retrieval methods that (1) rank highly relevant documents higher than less relevant ones, and (2) rank relevant (of any degree) documents high. With respect to (2), nDCG involves a discount component: a discount with regard to the relevance score of a relevant (of any degree) document is performed, and this discount is greater and greater, the higher position the document has in the ranked list of retrieved documents. In the multiple degree relevance situation, the five combinations were evaluated under four different user scenarios, where each scenario simulated a certain user type. Again, the four alternative combinations outperformed the baseline, for each user scenario. The truncation combination had the best performance under each user scenario. This outcome agreed with the performance result in the binary relevance situation. However, there were also differences between the two relevance situations. For 25 percent of the topics and with regard to one of the four user scenarios, the set of best performing combinations in the binary relevance situation was disjunct from the set of best performing combinations in the multiple degree relevance situation. The user scenario in question was such that almost all importance was placed on highly relevant documents, and the discount was sharp. The main conclusion of the thesis is that normalization and right hand truncation (performed by a search expert) enhanced retrieval effectiveness in comparison to the baseline, irrespective of which of the two relevance situations we consider. Further, the three indexing strategy-query term combinations based on normalization were almost as good as the combination that involves truncation. This holds for both relevance situations.
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| 3. |
- Ahlryd, Sara
(författare)
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På gränsen till en ny värld : studenters informationspraktiker på väg mot arbetslivet
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- With the increasing academisation of vocational educations the need for higher education to prove to students the relevance of theoretical domain knowledge to professional experience is growing. One way of doing so is to provide students with opportunities for professional training during the course of their studies. The aim of this thesis is to explore the ways in which professional training help students to connect education with working life. The study is carried out through a practice theoretical lens on students’ information practices. It also entails exploring how their information activities contribute to their socialization within workplace communities and to their construction of professional identities. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews, the empirically driven analysis shows that students’ appropriation of information practices during professional training support learning, socialization into a workplace as well as identification with their future professional roles. Students’ information practices can be viewed as significant tools in the process of transition between education and profession where they function as facilitators for learning and participation in workplace activities.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Björk, Lars
(författare)
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How reproductive is a reproduction? : Digital transmission of text-based documents
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Heritage institutions today increasingly rely on digital formats for access, use and re-useof their collections. Books and other text-based documents, previously accessed on locationin libraries are now transferred into digital format and managed, distributed, andengaged as binary encoded representations.The thesis addresses the relation between the source document and its reproduction, asconditioned by the digitisation process. This process can be described as based on twosequences of conversion; from analogue to digital format during the procedure of capture,and back to analogue as the digital resource is represented. In a study of the digitisationprocess it might therefore be tempting to place a focus on the technical aspects. However,the thesis demonstrates that underpinning the digitisation process we find assumptionsand ideals concerning the actual defining features of documents and also of their capacityto be informative. An analysis of the digitisation process, has consequently to considerboth the technical parameters in place during the conversion as well as the theoreticalassumptions that have guided its design and operation.Based on two empirical studies – an analysis of the components in the digitisation processand an interview study with researchers who rely on digital resources – this thesisseeks to outline a conceptual framework that structures the relation between the sourcedocument and its reproduction, as conditioned by the digitisation process. Boundary objecttheory provides a theoretical underpinning and is supported by two concepts thatare developed in the critical analysis of document and information theory: modes of representation(referring to the ways in which the source document is represented as a digitalresource) and informative configuration (referring to the ways in which the users engagewith the digital resource, given a specific interest).The thesis contributes to the theoretical development within the fields in Library & InformationScience that are concerned with document and information theory, but also inareas such as knowledge organisation and the application of digital technology within theheritage sector at large. The thesis also indicates some of the possibilities and limitationsof boundary object theory as applied to the study of documents in digitisation processes.
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| 6. |
- Centerwall, Ulrika, 1980-
(författare)
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Att ta plats och göra skillnad : skolbibliotekariepraktiker i framgångsrika verksamheter
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Avhandlingen är en sammanläggningsavhandling bestående av fyra artiklar på engelska och en kappa på svenska. För avhandlingsstudien intervjuades 22 skolbibliotekarier som arbetade på framgångsrika skolbibliotek i svenska högstadie- och gymnasieskolor. Syftet med studien är att bidra till fördjupade kunskaper om skolbibliotekariers arbete för att skapa framgångsrika skolbiblioteksverksamheter och hur det kan förstås med hjälp av begreppet skolbibliotekariepraktiker. I delstudierna utforskas det jag benämner som studiens empiriska aspekter, det vill säga: skolbibliotekariers identitet och synlighet, skolbibliotekarien som pedagogisk resurs och arbetet med normkritiska perspektiv. Fyra olika praktikteoretiska ansatser utgör de teoretiska utgångspunkterna för studien. Dessa ansatser kommer ur teorierna om performativitet (Butler 1997; 2006; 2011), infrastruktur (Star & Ruhleder 1996) och infrastruktur för lärande (Guribye 2005; Guribye & Lindström 2009) samt teorin om praktikarkitekturer (Kemmis et al. 2014). Avhandlingens titel Att ta plats och göra skillnad har kopplingar till studiens fem forskningsfrågor. Det rör sig för det första om skapandet av en performativ professionell identitet som skolbibliotekarie genom vilket en bibliotekarie framträder som syns, hörs, förändrar och gör skillnad. För det andra diskuteras sätt att ta plats kopplade till bibliotekets och bibliotekariens synlighet i skolan vilken skapas genom synliggörande och förespråkande. Bibliotekariernas allt större roll och närvaro i klassrum, undervisning och annan pedagogisk verksamhet blir ett tredje sätt att ta plats, där bibliotekarien fungerar som ett stöd för hela skolan genom undervisning, projektledning och skolutveckling. För det fjärde tar skolbibliotekarierna plats som drivande av skolans demokratiarbete. För det femte kan dessa sätt att skapa, driva fram och utveckla skolbiblioteksverksamhet begreppsliggöras som skolbibliotekariepraktiker. Genom analyserna framträder hur identitets- och relationsskapande, synliggörande och platstagande utgör viktiga delar i dessa praktiker.
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| 7. |
- Dahlström, Mats
(författare)
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Under utgivning : den vetenskapliga utgivningens bibliografiska funktion
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis investigates in what way the scholarly edition performs bibliographic functions as it manages and positions other documents. This is where the study differs from previous research on scholarly editing and bibliography. It aims to trace the boundary between scholarly editing and bibliography by comparing crucial objectives, problems and conflicts in each field. This is accomplished by identifying the argumentation, assumptions and conceptual frameworks that form the rationale for the fields, and subjecting them to qualitative critical and historical analysis. The main empirical material is editorial theory literature, with scholarly editions serving as illustrating examples. Key questions concern the way scholarly editors and bibliographers identify, define and reproduce their respective source material; the reasons for conflicts between editors’ varying expectations of the reproductive force in printed and digital editions; and the connections and demarcations between scholarly editing and bibliography and between scholarly editions and reference works such as bibliographies. Bibliographic and media theory form the basis for the theoretical framework, with additional input from book history, literary theory, genre studies and scholarly communication studies. The thesis suggests a distinction between the two activities of clustering and transposition, and the distortion the latter brings about. These concepts are employed to detect, group and explain activities and problems in scholarly editing and bibliography, who both manage sets of documents by clustering them to one another and transposing their contents by producing new documents. There is a noticeable division of labour between the two tasks, and they also correspond to different types of editions. The study also ties the dominant editorial strategies and edition types to respective bibliographic foci, and argues that central conflict areas are primarily accentuated and only secondarily introduced with digital editing. An idealistic strand treats editing as unbiased delivery of disambiguable and reproducible content, while to a hermeneutical strand the edition is an argumentative and content constraining filter, its editor being a kind of biased author. In a third strand, editions are content circulating ecosystems with a division of labour between collaborating media types. In particular the view of editions as constitutive arguments is related to analogue observations in LIS and genre and scholarly communication studies. On the one hand, editing is supposed to be a dynamic research area, ready to respond to new findings and scholarly ideals. On the other, several arenas demand the edition to serve as a conservative force, static and confirmatory. The potential of digital media points to a distinction between edition and archive, where the former but not the latter explicitly takes an interpretative stand. Digital editing also boosts the idealistic strand by the seeming promise to separate facts from interpretation and to enhance maximum exhaustiveness and reproductivity. Although the thesis identifies many commonalities between editions and reference works and the way these are structured, there is a crucial difference. The edition is simultaneously a work’s reference and referent. Bibliographies and reference works cannot make that claim.
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| 8. |
- Dahlström, Mats, 1964
(författare)
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Under utgivning: den vetenskapliga utgivningens bibliografiska funktion : The editors text: bibliographic functions in scholarly editing
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis investigates in what way the scholarly edition performs bibliographic functions as it manages and positions other documents. This is where the study differs from previous research on scholarly editing and bibliography. It aims to trace the boundary between scholarly editing and bibliography by comparing crucial objectives, problems and conflicts in each field. This is accomplished by identifying the argumentation, assumptions and conceptual frameworks that form the rationale for the fields, and subjecting them to qualitative critical and historical analysis. The main empirical material is editorial theory literature, with scholarly editions serving as illustrating examples. Key questions concern the way scholarly editors and bibliographers identify, define and reproduce their respective source material; the reasons for conflicts between editors’ varying expectations of the reproductive force in printed and digital editions; and the connections and demarcations between scholarly editing and bibliography and between scholarly editions and reference works such as bibliographies. Bibliographic and media theory form the basis for the theoretical framework, with additional input from book history, literary theory, genre studies and scholarly communication studies. The thesis suggests a distinction between the two activities of clustering and transposition, and the distortion the latter brings about. These concepts are employed to detect, group and explain activities and problems in scholarly editing and bibliography, who both manage sets of documents by clustering them to one another and transposing their contents by producing new documents. There is a noticeable division of labour between the two tasks, and they also correspond to different types of editions. The study also ties the dominant editorial strategies and edition types to respective bibliographic foci, and argues that central conflict areas are primarily accentuated and only secondarily introduced with digital editing. An idealistic strand treats editing as unbiased delivery of disambiguable and reproducible content, while to a hermeneutical strand the edition is an argumentative and content constraining filter, its editor being a kind of biased author. In a third strand, editions are content circulating ecosystems with a division of labour between collaborating media types. In particular the view of editions as constitutive arguments is related to analogue observations in LIS and genre and scholarly communication studies. On the one hand, editing is supposed to be a dynamic research area, ready to respond to new findings and scholarly ideals. On the other, several arenas demand the edition to serve as a conservative force, static and confirmatory. The potential of digital media points to a distinction between edition and archive, where the former but not the latter explicitly takes an interpretative stand. Digital editing also boosts the idealistic strand by the seeming promise to separate facts from interpretation and to enhance maximum exhaustiveness and reproductivity. Although the thesis identifies many commonalities between editions and reference works and the way these are structured, there is a crucial difference. The edition is simultaneously a work’s reference and referent. Bibliographies and reference works cannot make that claim.
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| 9. |
- Dessne, Karin
(författare)
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In a world of values and views : Information and learning activities in a military setting
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about information and learning activities in organisations. A case study of the Swedish Armed Forces has been conducted and it consists of two parts; the first involves a licentiate thesis and two papers, while the second part includes two additional papers. The study focuses on learning from experiences in training and field action. The research endeavours to synthesise interactive and interdependent aspects of informality and formality. These aspects are used to explain how the nature of relationships manifests itself in a setting and how it relates to learning. Moreover, preconditions that contribute to how the nature of relationships is formed and reformed are explored. Finally, an effort has been made to find and describe implications of intervening with relationships in a setting. Such intervention may be desirable or required to accommodate or increase learning and knowing in organisations. Taken together, the findings show the complex dynamics between information, learning and knowing in the studied setting. Furthermore, it is illustrated how values and views in social interaction are part of how people construct relationships and learning within them. It is concluded that in order to facilitate learning by intervening with these relationships, it is important to understand the nature of them. Such intervention may vary from gentle facilitation to intrusive design, and success or failure depends on which is suitable. The research in this thesis adds to previous research emphasising the need for understanding the dynamics between information, learning and knowing in order to facilitate these activities. Future research may therefore build on the provided empirical findings and conceptual analyses to continue this line of reasoning.
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| 10. |
- Dolatkhah, Mats
(författare)
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Det läsande barnet : minnen av läspraktiker, 1900–1940
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is a study of the cultural history of children’s reading. It is argued that it is important to apply a wider historical perspective to the contemporary debate on the rapid changes in children’s and young people’s reading habits, and that existing historical research rarely deals with reading as a practice, but rather with its institutional and textual conditions such as the school, the library system and children’s literature. The thesis thus aims to explore the practice of reading and its relations to historical circumstances. Through a close reading of 30 retrospective interviews conducted in the 1970’s and 80’s, the analysis deals with some of the experienced motives, inter- pretations, materialities and social dimensions of children’s reading practices experienced in the first decades of the 20th century. It offers a discussion of these practices as related to wider historical contexts. Theoretically, the analysis is in- spired by the conceptualizations of a ‘history of reading’ in the works of Roger Chartier, Robert Darnton and Jonathan Rose. It is concluded that even if the informants in principle had access to different models, motives and genres for reading, the practice of reading often had to take on the character of improvisation in contexts where material resources and soci- al sympathies for reading were lacking. Furthermore, in relation to the complex social tensions and dynamics surrounding reading, the practice may also be defined by its degree of legitimacy and/or autonomy in a given context. These results imply that further research and debate is needed on the con- nections between the value attributed to reading in relation to changing concepts of work and “usefulness”, on the collective historical experiences of cultural progression, and on issues of the identity of the modern children’s library.
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