Vem är en auktoritet? : Hur katalogisatörer inom LIBRIS-samarbetet söker, värderar och använder information

Sammanfattning: This master’s thesis is about cataloguing and information practices. In Sweden, most cataloguing is done in LIBRIS, a national database containing the collections of most public and academic libraries in the country. The people who catalogue books and other types of media in this database work at libraries that span the entire nation. It is a national collective engaged in the joint enterprise of cooperative cataloguing. But being separated by geographic distance, people within the collective develop different work practices. One area where this variety of work practices is particularly visible is within the scope of information practices: searching for, using, and evaluating information. Cataloguing in LIBRIS is done according to RDA, a set of cataloguing rules that are complex and leave much up to the individual cataloguer’s judgment. To assist them in these judgment calls, the working cataloguer today has access to national bibliographies, databases, encyclopedias, web stores and other websites that possess information which could prove useful – or misleading. Using Patrick Wilson’s idea of cognitive authority together with practice theory, this master’s thesis examines how different information practices are performed within the same national database. Additionally, it will, using Jean Lave and Etienne Wengers concept of communities of practice, show how this establishes a community of cataloguers who inform each other’s work and share a repertoire, despite rarely communicating with each other. The empirical study consists of eleven semi-structured interviews, primarily conducted over the Internet, with cataloguers employed at public and university libraries in Sweden. These cataloguers, despite cataloguing different types of media and genres, are all working in LIBRIS. The findings of the study lead us to several conclusions. Firstly, we see that cataloguers employ a variety of sources depending on what type of media they are cataloguing. These sources are ascribed different levels of trustworthiness within different contexts. Secondly, while the interviewed cataloguers work with the end-user in mind, they have different views on cataloguing practices in general. These different views inform the level of trust that the cataloguers place both in third-party sources and other libraries working in LIBRIS. Thirdly, while frustrations within the collective exist, cataloguers largely embrace the cooperative aspect of working in the LIBRIS-database. The thesis ends with a discussion of possible further research and the study’s relevance for the library sector in Sweden.