This presentation looks at the use of a mapping methodology to gather data on how communities of practice steward their informational environments. The method generated data for the project team but also immediate insights for participants, as they managed workplace change from the bottom up.

1. Changing libraries:
using mapping to help manage workplace change
using mapping to help manage workplace change
Andrew Whitworth, SEED, University of Manchester
(project co-investigators: Maria-Carme Torras i Calvo, Universitet i Bergen; Bodil Moss,
Høgskolen i Bergen; Nazareth Amlesom Kifle, Høgskolen i Bergen; Terje Blåsternes, Universitet i
Stavanger)

2. Structure of presentation
Introduction - why mapping?
Aims and objectives of the Bibliotek i Endring
project
Findings
What can this methodology offer?

3. Mapping landscapes

4. A map is not ‘objective’ - what goes on it is a question of selection.
What is the purpose of the map?; who are the audience for a map?
Mapping landscapes

5. Mapping as a learning tool
Concept mapping.... a “map of cognition” (Wandersee)
Other forms of visual imagery can help promote
reflection and reveal the taken-for-granted

6. To understand change…
…it is necessary to understand
practice…
…and how practices are collectively
developed within organisations as an
information landscape (Lloyd 2010).

7. Context and landscape
The organisation must be seen as a lived experience,
continually constructed by practices developed within
an environment.
This environmental context will be unique from
organisation to organisation.
Each workplace is therefore a unique “information
landscape” (Lloyd 2010); a dynamic environment
comprised of practices that construct, move, validate and
transform information.

8. Communities of practice
Wenger investigates how workplace
groups with shared learning needs
negotiate practice and competence
With White & Smith (2009) he looks
at how communities steward their
‘habitat’
Because this requires scrutiny of practices, stewarding is a
locus of authority in a community…
But this authority, and the capacity to steward, can be
distributed

9. Gaps in the literature?
Stewarding is presented as a conscious and deliberate
act… almost a ‘job description’.
BUT: it is often unconscious, embedded in other practices
or even the uses of words. How do these subtler processes
combine to influence the information landscape?
This also requires attention to the complex problem of
how groups make collective judgments about relevance
(see Saracevic 2007).

10. Resources in the landscape

11. Questions to ask…
In a given context…
What resources are available?
Who can influence practice?
Who is stewarding the information landscape?
How are competence, relevance and other critical
judgments negotiated?
How do these factors influence change management?

12. The BiE project: background
Change management in
libraries
Two case studies over 15
month period
Funded by
Nasjonalbiblioteket (the
National Library),
Norway

13. Methodology
Iterative concept mapping
Observing change in the information
landscape — the impact of practice
Sessions ran from Oct 2013 - Sept 2014
Six sessions over 12 months

14. Practical tool: Ketso
www.ketso.com
Brief background
Structured the mapping process
Dynamic, tactile, visual
Gave a ‘common language’ (cf. Star,
boundary objects)

15. Advantages…
Allows groups to collectively create a map,
rather than relying on a scribe
Durable, but also easily adjustable
Produces data for analysis, but also makes
(other) data instantly visible

16. Change over time…
At each session, we reviewed whether actions
had been completed, and by whom
Participants were then guided to review the
map [though note the ‘fresh map’ issue]
See the ‘mapimations’
No necessary correlation between actions,
priorities and actual change (or perception of it)

17. Management of ‘territories’
Some areas of the maps were clearly being
directed by one person (data from
handwriting and final interviews)
Is this a given? Sensible acknowledgement of
expertise?
Perhaps… but there was still scrutiny and
review (and some adjustments)

18. Feedback
‘Bill’ said, through specifying actions to be undertaken then
following these up in the next session:
“You get to keep track of things over time. You say that you are going to
do certain things and then you get followed up on them in the next session,
and you can see whether they remained important. You can talk things
over with your colleagues and get to see who should take part in it or not.”
1. Benefits for the planning and organisation of
work

19. Feedback
2. Data and insights for application in the
workplace
‘Carol’:
Sometimes you ‘see the leaves’ later, and remember that for
certain activities you linked them with pieces of information,
and sources, and people that you had said you would contact.
Also it solidifies or consolidates some practices that you are
unsure about, or insecure about. After the discussions you feel,
yes, that was the right way to do it.

20. Feedback
3. Distribution of information
‘Matthew’ said that the sessions helped him:
find out what colleagues were doing. Maybe I knew that certain
colleagues did certain things, but it was a good way of finding out
what ‘big things’ they were working on and what was particularly
important to them. This was particularly relevant to me because I
work on a separate campus.

21. Feedback
4. (Unmediated) discussion and reflection on underlying
values
‘Joanna’, who had senior managerial responsibilities in her library, said:
It was a good opportunity to take time out with members of staff and reflect
where we are at and how we understand the situation around us. What are the
hot topics? What are the priorities and how do we perceive them?… I got more
out of it than from the normal monitoring and meeting process. The amount of
information I would normally get [directly] would be a lot less, and particularly
the perceptions of the staff. Previously contact would be mediated through middle
management, but even though they were there in the sessions, the mediating
aspect was removed.

22. Summary
The Ketso map highlights different aspects of the landscape:
• Tasks and topics represent a structure for the activities
undertaken in the libraries, at different scales.
• Needs and sources represent boundary objects and brokers,
particularly with sources.
• Actions and priorities are the result of scrutiny, and potential
loci of changed practice.
• Blocks retard change but can also become the foci of learning.

23. Maps in the landscape?
Feedback suggested the maps per se were not the
primary output of the sessions for participants
Insights were gained but maps not referred to directly
between sessions
The map itself was more a research artefact…
But the maps ‘anchored’ the sessions, provided
continuity between them, a ‘common language’ and a
locus of discussion and reflection.

24. Further work?
We have a general appreciation of the worth of the method,
but need to look more at specifics
Particularly: the role of facilitation; the discussions and
interactions during sessions

25. Conclusion
• It is not a matter of engineering
change, or workplace learning
environments
• Chess analogy
• The method is both research and
practice…

26. Publication (thus far)…
Whitworth, A., Torras I Calvo, M. C., Moss, B., Amlesom kifle,
N., & Blåsternes, T. (2014). Changing Libraries: Facilitating Self-
Reflection and Action Research on Organizational Change in
Academic Libraries. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 20(2),
251-274.
(Open access version available on bibsys.no)

27. Thank you
Drew, Maria-Carme, Bodil, Nazareth & Terje