Marisa Ponti & Diane H. Sonnenwald Göteborg University & University College of Borås Sweden Investigating the Potential Uptake of E-Research within a Social Science Discipline: Socio-technical Issues within Library & Information Science

Introduction Library & Information science (LIS) - Focuses on the use of technology in info environments - Historically a ’less privileged’ discipline but valuable: £1.00 spent in support of public libraries = £4.40 in terms of gross regional product, time & money saved ( British Library, 2004) Challenges facing LIS - Not ”big science” - Not historically an academic discipline - Limited research funding - Practice-research gap Can e-Research help to fill the gap?

Library & Information science (LIS)

- Focuses on the use of technology in info environments

- Historically a ’less privileged’ discipline but valuable:

£1.00 spent in support of public libraries

= £4.40 in terms of gross regional product, time

& money saved ( British Library, 2004)

Challenges facing LIS

- Not ”big science”

- Not historically an academic discipline

- Limited research funding

- Practice-research gap

Research Question & Methods Question - How do socio-technical aspects of work organization interplay with the heterogeneous interests of actors in a collaborative project between LIS researchers and practitioners? Research Methods - Informed by Actor-Network Theory/ Callon’s model of translation of interests (1986) - Case study approach - Data for first case study: 8 semi-structured interviews Texts, e.g., listserve (250 messages), 20 project documents

Question

- How do socio-technical aspects of work organization

interplay with the heterogeneous interests of actors in a collaborative project between LIS researchers

and practitioners?

Research Methods

- Informed by Actor-Network Theory/

Callon’s model of translation of interests (1986)

- Case study approach

- Data for first case study:

8 semi-structured interviews

Texts, e.g., listserve (250 messages),

20 project documents

Case: Semantic OPACs

Initial Findings Low level of institutionalization - Lack of external funding: no budget, no expenditures - Importance of professional expertise - Element of both risk and freedom Collocated and remote collaboration - Unplanned complications Face-to-face meetings & collaborative knowledge creation - Listserv Ongoing situation awareness & project memory Lack of institutional intellectual property rules - Flexibility for actors - Possibility to reward individual effort

Low level of institutionalization

- Lack of external funding: no budget, no expenditures

- Importance of professional expertise

- Element of both risk and freedom

Collocated and remote collaboration

- Unplanned complications

Face-to-face meetings & collaborative knowledge creation

- Listserv

Ongoing situation awareness & project memory

Lack of institutional intellectual property rules

- Flexibility for actors

- Possibility to reward individual effort

Conclusion & Future Work Creative use of available resources & navigation of work environments Practitioner volunteers vs. high performance computing SemOP ”2” project underway Two additional case studies in progress

Creative use of available resources & navigation of

work environments

Practitioner volunteers vs. high performance computing

SemOP ”2” project underway

Two additional case studies in progress

Acknowledgments Our thanks to the study participants: http://www-dimat.unipv.it/biblio/sem/ This research is funded by the Center for Collaborative Innovation and the Bengt Helmqvist Fund