Monitoring, browsing and being aware – Keeping abreast and staying updated with professional information in Swedish regional libraries

Abstract

A substantial part of the work conducted by librarians at Swedish regional libraries concerns staying alert and informed in ways that allow for continuous development of the kind of knowledge and abilities that are required for doing a qualified job, but this part of the work is elusive and hard to identify. This paper presents an empirical study that elucidates this specific kind of work of keeping abreast and updated with professional information. Empirical data were produced through interviews and logbooks with 10 members of staff at 4 regional libraries in Sweden. The data were analysed by employing Marcia Bates’ model of different information-seeking modes. The results of the study show that the activity in focus is seamlessly intertwined with other work activities and enacted in a variety of ways that are adapted after other work tasks (than the information seeking in itself) and dependent on individual preferences and routines. Since there is a certain conception of this activity as something that should be carried out in a certain systematic way and since it is something that one as a librarian ought to be good at, it is furthermore often associated with a normative dimension that provokes a sense of guilt among the study participants.

Ubiquitous but invisible – public librarians’ self-imposed professional information practices as articulation work

“…Lindberg (2019) further shows how this group of professionals tend to engage in this activity outside of their regular working hours (cf. Pilerot, 2022). The blurring of boundaries between work and leisure is well-documented in research today (e.g., Mullan and Wajcman, 2019).…”

“…In a previous study (Pilerot, 2022) on how regional librarians stay updated in their work, it was concluded, based on a survey of this diverse literature, that the activity can be described using a set of polarities, along which the activity appears to shift on a sliding scale. The study demonstrated that librarians tend to stay informed and updated through individual engagement rather than collective efforts.…”

“…The nature of these shifts and changes varies between professions and workplaces. Previous studies of library work in regional library development (Pilerot, 2022) and in university libraries (Pilerot and Lindberg, 2018) indicate that variation is an almost constant element.…”