“Library users come to a library to find books”. The structuration of the library as a soft information system
| Published date | 02 September 2013 |
| Pages | 715-735 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2012-0080 |
| Date | 02 September 2013 |
| Author | Isto Huvila |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management |
“Library users come to a library
to find books”
The structuration of the library
as a soft information system
Isto Huvila
Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – Considering the perceived significance of librarians and information experts as
professional information seekers and information seeking educators and of the institutional setting of
information work, very little is known about the information practices of librarians and information
professionals, their contexts and implications for libraries and their users. The aim of this study is to
explore the information interactions of library professionals within and in relation to the context of the
setting of the library.
Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on a qualitative case study of a large
North European city library. Material was collected using information seeking diaries, interviews and
ethnographic observation in the library space.
Findings – The information practices of librarians are contextual to the setting of the library within
which the meeting of the assumptions of library users, of the use of that particular system plays a
significant role. The systemic interplay of librarians, library users and other parts of the system
constrains the breadth of the available information at libraries, but at the same time, keeping to a
particular set of shared norms and practices of library use also facilitates the use of the system.
Research limitations/implications – The generalisability of the findings is limited by the fact
that they are based on an individual case study.
Practical implications – The systemic nature of library and its reproduction in a process of
structuration underlines the need to develop information services in libraries from a holistic
perspective that takes into account the practical implications of the shared norms and assumptions of
how a library should work.
Originality/value – There is little earlier research on the information practices of library and
information professionals, particularly with specific reference to its implications for libraries and their
users.
Keywords Librarians,Information behaviour, Public libraries, Systems theory,Structuration,
Information organizations
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Traditional information science literature tends to portray librarians and information
professionals as privileged information seekers. They are experts that help ordinary
people to explicate complex information needs and navigate through difficult
information systems in order to find relevant information (Hedman, 2006). Information
seeking and reference skills are recognised as core competences of information
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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The study has been supported by a grant from Otto A. Malm Foundation.
A soft
information
system
715
Received 25 June 2012
Revised 31 October 2012
Accepted 5 November 2012
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 69 No. 5, 2013
pp. 715-735
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-06-2012-0080
professionals (Abels et al., 2003; Kajberg, 1997) and a premise for new competences
(e.g. as in Partridge et al., 2010) even if the development emergence of web searching
has decreased the relative significance of direct reference work at libraries and
information services (Pugh, 2007, p. 4, 44). Information seeking competence is also
considered as a fundamental premiss of information literacy (Huvila, 2011) and a
non-significant dimension of broader contextual notions of, for instance, information
practices (Talja and Lloyd, 2010) and information work (Huvila, 2008).
Even if the digitalisation of information provision has broadened the contexts of
information seeking of both information professionals and non-professionals, libraries
and other types of information institutions form the principal setting for the
professional information seeking of library and information experts. Instead of being a
neutral scene, earlier research has shown how the institutional setting influence s
library users’ behaviour (e.g. Fleming-May, 2011) and librarians’ work pra ctices
(Schultze, 2000). The institutional setting can also form a prohibitive structure that
makes it difficult to adjust to new forms of knowing and informing (Maina, 2012).
Considering the perceived significance of librarians and information experts as
professional information seekers and information seeking educators and, secondly, of
the institutional setting of information work, very little is known about the information
practices of librarians and information professionals and their implications for
libraries and library use. The aim of this study is to explore the information
interactions of library professionals within and in relation to the context of the setting
of the library and to explicate the factors that affect the outcomes of their information
work. How do librarians work with information? How do they find information and
become informed? What are the factors and actors that influence the ways of in which
librarians seek and use information? The analysis is based on a qualitative case study
of a large North European city library. Material was collected using information
seeking diaries, interviews and ethnographic observation in the library space.
“Library” is conceptualised in this study in terms of Checkland (2000) as a soft
(information) system that incorporates institutional, technological and human actors,
and the shaping of this particular system as a process of structuration according to the
theorising of Giddens (1984) and Orlikowski (1991). The strength of the approach is
that it helps to explicate the interplay of human actors, technologies and other
contextual factors within a single comprehensive framework. Giddens theory perceives
the reproduction of social systems (in the context of this study, also Checkland’s soft
systems) as an active constituting process based on a mutual interplay of objective
structures and subjective agents. The theory is based on an assumption of the duality
of structure. The structure shapes and is shaped by human action and functions
simultaneously as a constraining and enabling frame of action for the agents. Agents
are free to to comply or work against the structures, although, as Orlikowski et al.
(1991) remark of the theory, “interestingly, people readily allow their actions to be
constrained by these shared abstractions of social structure”. Shared abstraction, and
routinisation and institutionalisation of action are foundational in the process of
enacting social order and social systems. The present study uses the notion of
structuration to explicate the reciprocal process of how soft systems are constituted in
the sense proposed by Orlikowski et al. (1991) in the context of information technology.
Like IT for Orlikowski, the soft system is perceived as a product (outcome of design,
development, appropriation, modification) and medium (soft systems facilitate and
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