What is a practice-based approach?

What is a practice-based approach (PBA) to organizing and why is it relevant for libraries? At some level, this question occupies most of my reflections and my thinking about how libraries and information organizations are already or perhaps should be changing or reorienting themselves. There are different definitions of PBA in the literature, mainly from sociological theory, but all definitions share the idea that "practice" is central and all share the idea that practice is emphatically "anti-dualistic" (Marshall, 2008). In practice, agency and structure come together in action, in "doing." And doing is often understood as "organizing" [for] and "learning." The togetherness aspect of practice is the dimension that makes practice a "social" theory and an activity that is fundamentally shared. Practice also occurs in time-space, it is always situated in this way. Which means that practice is often described in very "local" terms, making it difficult often to replicate "practices" across time and space and across differing socialities or activities. Making it also difficult sometimes to discuss practices in more theoretical or abstract ways.

Now, you can [and should] ask me, so what is "structure" and what is "agency" and what do they mean for libraries? And these are very important preliminary questions because everything we understand about practice and all of its significance as a theoretical approach to understanding and managing organizations today, comes originally from these two concepts.

About sociality, knowing, learning and technology

Earlier this month I completed my doctorate at the Faculty of Information University of Toronto where I studied the social knowledge and learning practices of reference staff and their clients at the reference desks of three branch libraries in a large Canadian urban public library.

I am going to use this blog to throw ideas down on paper and put them out to anyone who finds them. It will be a place to collect ideas that I find provocative and which I might turn into research projects down the road. A place to put the first words to intuitions and experiences.

I am currently interested in social theory, sociality and social practices as they influence organizations. I am interested in organizing for learning, the immaterial value of material objects, the roles of structure and agency in our day to day informational lives. I am deeply connected to the world of public libraries and more generally to all libraries and the activities of librarians and information professionals. I hope I can both influence and participate in building the future of libraries and libraries of the future.

I like debate and I like to find the boundaries and then try to do my bit to move them. I laugh a lot and prefer to believe the glass is always at least half full. And I have many years of experience already of talking to myself, so this blog is another manifestation of that activity.