| 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. |
- 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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| 3. |
- 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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| 4. |
- Frenander, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Arkitekter på armlängds avstånd? Att studera kulturpolitik
- 2010
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Boken innehåller sex nyskrivna eller tidigare publicerade uppsatser som på ett grundläggande sätt introducerar historieskrivning, begrepp och teorier som är nödvändiga för studier av den moderna kulturpolitiken.
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| 5. |
- Gunnarsson, Mikael
(författare)
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Classification along genre dimensions : exploring a multidisciplinary problem
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis treats the sociotechnical notion of genre as a conflation of a communicative situation and a community of practices involved in producing and using documents. It explores the ways in which documents may be mapped to the sociocultural contexts from which they emanate. In other words, it is concerned with the classification of documents along genre dimensions, with the purpose of supporting information seeking. The thesis positions itself within Library and Information Science in two parts. Firstly, a theoretical framework for classification along genre dimensions is developed based on relevant theories and practices from Library and Information Science, as well as from sociologically motivated Linguistics, and neighbouring domains. Secondly, a setup for experiments, including feature derivation and reannotation of existing corpora, is designed in order to explore the relationship between text documents and genres, and the extent to which a mapping of documents to genres can be realized in real world applications. The experimental part of the thesis relies on an existing corpus for genre classification research, used in comparable research, with an addition of a slight extension. In the experiments, combinations of feature sets and target genres are evaluated, using traditional performance estimators for classification performance. The outcome of the first part of the work indicates that the notion of genre with respect to classification is largely undertheorized in Library and Information Science. We need to know more about the nature of different genres, how to robustly identify the documents of a genre, and the impact genres have on information seeking. Interdisciplinary collaborative research would be most beneficial in these efforts. The results of the experiments of the second part are fairly inconclusive for the evaluation of feature sets, but it can be concluded that the optimal combination of feature sets and target genres is a crucial issue for high performance, and worthy of more investigation.
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| 6. |
- Gärdén, Cecilia
(författare)
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Verktyg för lärande. Informationssökning och informationsanvändning i kommunal vuxenutbildning
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- 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.
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| 7. |
- Isah, Esther Ebole
(författare)
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Physicians‟ information practices : a case study of a medical team at a Teaching Hospital
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is a user study within library and information science on participatory practices of a professional group in work activity. This has been investigated only to a minor extent in previous library and information science research. The qualitative empirical focus alternates between physicians‟ engagements in work practice and workplace learning within patient care. The overall research problem was to learn how people in workplaces interacted with information that was embedded, intricately intertwined, and tightly bound to the ongoing routines of their everyday work. This thesis aims at understanding information practices of professionals in occupational settings as exemplified by a team of physicians in a Nigerian teaching hospital. In this thesis, the focus was on the collective work activity, and the specific goals identified include how physicians interact and make meaning in the context of the social activities in the workplace, how professionals individually or collectively gather, understand, produce, share and use information, and how workplace learning influences information practices. Information practices are viewed as sociocultural practices that occur inside other practices. The thesis focuses on a nuanced, contextualized understanding of the interplay between the participating actors in activity, the activity per se, and the intermediary role of tools and artefacts. The epistemological point of departure is the sociocultural perspective that emphasizes the dynamic interdependence of the individual with the social and collective development focusing on mediation through tools and artefacts in cultural, institutional, and historical situations. I have chosen cultural-historical activity theory and the practice theories to analyse the dynamic processes in the context of patient care. Their underlying principles guided the empirical study, facilitating extrapolations and illustrations in the analysis. The cultural-historical activity theory was used to understand contextual issues that influence information practices in work activity: the object and subject of activity, division of labour, rules and norms, community, tools and artefacts, as well as the activity system itself and the hierarchical structure of the activity. Theories and concepts employed from a practice perspective on learning were considered useful for understanding the participatory modes in workplace and the influence of social learning communities on diverse information processes. In so doing, the study strives to provide a holistic understanding of information practices, workplace learning, and the relationships between them.The empirical data was gathered through a qualitative case study that lasted over a period of two years. Direct observation was the dominant data collection technique 5 used throughout the preliminary and main empirical studies to capture physicians‟ information practices and experiences. The observation focused on the Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CPT) team‟s encounters with patients; the interactions they had amongst themselves, and events and situations surrounding patient care. During the main study, other data collection techniques were employed alongside the observation method. In-depth open-ended interviews were conducted with 17 physicians and 9 non-physicians who were selected to provide rich and varied descriptions of the phenomena under study. The interview time totalled at 1,535 minutes. Physical artefacts were another data collection technique employed: 30 patients‟ medical records were assessed during the empirical study. Finally, informal interactions in the research setting were an additional data collection technique used continuously throughout the two empirical periods. The results were analyzed through a combination of inductive and deductive methods of analysis. There are four parts to the empirical results in this thesis. In the first, contextual elements that showed how work environment can be an influencing factor in the information practices of a professional group are described from the perspective of cultural historical activity theory. In the second part, the nature of information access in the real-world information environment was portrayed. It was found that information sources and strategies contributed to the overarching goal of restoring patient health to normalcy. The information sources and strategies were also found useful for mediating the information environment both subjectively and intersubjectively. An equally important result concerns the authority issues related to information sources and strategies. In the third part, available tools and artefacts were presented as useful information aids that also played a mediating role. Tools were categorised into physical tools and language. Language was categorized according to the social situations or classes of speakers. The case notes were seen as useful artefact and occupied a central niche in the studied work activity. These tools and artefacts enabled affordances around which social practices were built on in the work activities. In the last part of the results, various information practices that mirror the participatory practices rather than those of isolated individuals are highlighted. Six dimensions made up and covered the most vital spectrum of the information processing: information gathering, meaning making, information sharing, information use, reading, and documentation. Furthermore, the study revealed that learning took place simultaneously with the work activity and that it influenced information practices at the same time.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Johansson, Veronica
(författare)
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A time and place for everything? : social visualisation tools and critical literacies
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this study is to analyse mutual enactments of critical literacies and social visualisation tools as information resources. The central concept of critical literacies as used here extends and redefines prior critical literacy definitions to denote the pluralistic situated enactments of meaning through which study participants identify, question and transform bias, restrictions and power related aspects of access, control and use in relation to the tools. The study is based on two critical ethnography inspired case studies involving observations, interviews, and contextual inquiry and located in professional settings. Case 1 is centred on how a geographic information system (MapInfo) is used for analysing and preventing traffic accidents. Case 2 is centred on how a dynamic time series animating chart (Trendalyzer) is used for analysing and spreading knowledge about the world’s development. The results demonstrate co-existing critical literacies described in terms of three main directionalities as reactive, proactive, and adaptive, of which the adaptive varieties seem thus far largely overlooked. On the basis of these findings, it is suggested that dominant cognitivist and positivist narratives of visualisations should be replaced with more nuanced alternatives that emphasise the potentials of visualisation tools as evocative and non-blackboxed information resources; i.e., as encouraging new questions and allowing alternative analyses, rather than constructing them as enunciative tools providing true answers. As theoretical contributions, the dissertation argues for a conceptualisation of visualisation tools as representational artefacts and a species of documents actuating information organisation related problems of representation. It also presents a new theoretical construct for the analysis and understanding of the mutual shaping of critical literacies and information resources that includes both cultural practices and actor interests through a combination of sociocultural theories on tools and sociotechnical theories on inscriptions.
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| 10. |
- Lindsköld, Linnéa
(författare)
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Betydelsen av kvalitet : en studie av diskursen om statens stöd till ny, svensk skönlitteratur 1975-2009
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to explore the conceptions of aesthetic quality used in Swedish literature policy through a study of the discourse of the state support to new, Swedish fiction 1975-2009. This support scheme is a quality-based retrospective grant, introduced in 1975, aiming to guarantee the quality and versatility of book publishing. It is explored as an expression of cultural policy in a welfare policy setting, where the autonomy of the arts is a central concept. The quality of the book is the foremost criterion for the award of support and quality assessment is carried out by a work group consisting of authors, critics, librarians and researchers. The empirical part of the study analyses arguments concerning state support forwarded in the debate from political documents, articles in newspapers and trade press, debate books and also in six interviews with former members of the workgroups from the 1970s and the 2000s. A discourse policy analysis is used to examine the discourse of the support, how it is legitimized and the conceptions of aesthetic quality embedded in the discourse. The results show that for stakeholders state support is highly legitimate. The support is discursively connected to welfare politics and democracy, even though it is aimed at artifacts, not citizens. It is legitimized as being a support to book production, not for mediating literature. There has been a shift in the conception of quality, from being identified in a negative sense to a positive sense. A professional concept of quality as a driving force is used by the workgroup. The shift towards explicating quality can be seen as a way of protecting the concept of quality in a time where it is perceived as being under threat. The use of quality as the foremost criterion can be seen as resistance against shifts in cultural policy that are perceived as adaptations to market values or politicization. The results render visible the political aspects of the concept of quality in state support.
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