Changing libraries:using mapping to help manage workplace changeusing 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)

Structure of presentation

Introduction - why mapping?

Aims and objectives of the Bibliotek i Endring project

Findings

What can this methodology offer?

Mapping landscapes

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

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

To understand change…

…it is necessary to understandpractice…

…and how practices are collectively developed within organisations as an information landscape (Lloyd 2010).

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.

Communities of practice

Wenger investigates how workplacegroups with shared learning needsnegotiate practice and competence

With White & Smith (2009) he looksat how communities steward their‘habitat’

Because this requires scrutiny of practices, stewarding is alocus of authority in a community…

But this authority, and the capacity to steward, can be distributed

Gaps in the literature?

Stewarding is presented as a conscious and deliberateact… almost a ‘job description’.

BUT: it is often unconscious, embedded in other practicesor even the uses of words. How do these subtler processescombine to influence the information landscape?

This also requires attention to the complex problem ofhow groups make collective judgments about relevance(see Saracevic 2007).

Resources in the landscape

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?

The BiE project: background

Change management in libraries

Two case studies over 15 month period

Funded by Nasjonalbiblioteket (the National Library), Norway

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

Practical tool: Ketso

www.ketso.com

Brief background

Structured the mapping process

Dynamic, tactile, visual

Gave a ‘common language’ (cf. Star, boundary objects)

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

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)

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)

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Conclusion

• It is not a matter of engineering change, or workplace learning environments

• Chess analogy

• The method is both research and practice…

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)

Thank youDrew, Maria-Carme, Bodil, Nazareth & Terje