Purpose: This article introduces a dialogically based theory of documentary practices and document work as a promising framework for studying activities that are often conceptualised as Information Behaviour or Information Practices within Library and Information Science (LIS). Design/methodology/approach: An empirical example -a lesson on how to read railway timetables -is presented. The lesson stems from a research project including 223 Swedish lessons recorded in Swedish primary schools 1967-1969. It is argued that this lesson, as many empirical situations within LIS research, can fruitfully be regarded as documentary practices which include document work such as reading, rather than instances of information behaviour. Findings: It is found that the theoretical perspective of dialogism could contribute to the theory development within LIS, and function as a bridge between different subfields such as reading studies and documentary practices. Research limitations/implications:The framework is yet to be applied on a larger scale. This would require a willingness to go beyond the entrenched idea of information as the core theoretical concept and empirical object of study within LIS. Social implications: The theoretical framework offers a view of the relations between individuals, documents, and social contexts, through which it is possible to explore the social significance of core LIS concerns such as reading, literacy, and document work. Originality/value: The theoretical framework offers an alternative to the monologist, information-based theories and models of people's behaviours and practices prevalent in LIS.

Information and experience: Audiovisual observations of reading activities in Swedish comprehensive school classrooms 1967-1969 This study investigates reading activities in Swedish primary school classrooms during the late 1960s. Sound and video recordings of 223 Swedish lessons held between 1967 and 1969 are used to analyse the activity of reading as taught and performed. The results indicate that the practice of informational reading, often based on finding predetermined, explicit 'facts' in textbooks through individual, silent reading, was common. The practice of experiential reading, based on fiction, imagination and the joy of reading, was not only less common, but also often compromised by instrumental concerns. In the national curriculum of the time, the practice of informational reading was related to study skills and was intended to prepare all pupils for higher level education. While often appearing overproportioned, superficial and fragmented, these reading practices were still intentional objects of learning and teaching, and were grounded in the democratic and egalitarian ideals of Swedish postwar educational policy.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to historicise research conducted in the fields of Information Seeking and Learning and Information Literacy and thereby begin to outline a description of the history of information in the context of Swedish compulsory education. Design/methodology/approach Document work and documentary practices are used as alternatives to concepts such as information seeking or information behaviour. Four empirical examples of document work – more specifically informational reading – recorded in Swedish primary classrooms in the 1960s are presented. Findings In the recordings, the reading style students use is similar to informational reading in contemporary educational settings: it is fragmentary, facts-oriented, and procedure-oriented. The practice of finding correct answers, rather than analysing and discussing the contents of a text seems to continue from lessons organised around print textbooks in the 1960s to the inquiry-based and digital teaching of today. Originality/value The paper seeks to analyse document work and documentary practices by regarding “information” as a discursive construction in a particular era with material consequences in particular contexts, rather than as a theoretical and analytical concept. It also problematises the notion that new digital technologies for producing, organising, finding, using, and disseminating documents have drastically changed people’s behaviours and practices in educational and other contexts.

She has conducted several discourse-oriented studies of cultural and literature policy focusing on quality and diversity, as well as radical right cultural policy. Her research interests include the aesthetics of cultural policy, the politics of reading and the function of literature in the welfare state.

In this paper it is observed that an orientation towards the library user is occurring within the field of library history. As reading is an important aspect of library use, it is suggested that library history would benefit from using approaches and perspectives developed by historians of reading. These approaches could be used to support the growing interest in the library user. A concept of 'reading rules' is applied to a source material consisting of retrospective interviews containing information on children's reading practices within the context of the family in early twentieth-century Sweden. It is thereby demonstrated that parents applied different rules to their children's reading, and that these rules conditioned the children's reading and library practices.