This is a submission to the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM 2006". The paper is one of a series by the authors that seeks to explain conflicts and contradictions in knowledge management discourse in organisations. The paper presents a study of knowledge networking within a public sector agency (PSA), where a number of knowledge management initiatives have been introduced since the inception of the UK â Modernising governmentâ programme of 1999. The study involves an observant participant (Czarniawska, 2001), as one of the authors has worked in the organisation as a Knowledge Analyst (â KAâ ). The case is an interesting one as it explicates the social and material consequences of a number of utopian KM visions that inspired senior managers in the organisation. For seven years (1999-2006), PSA maintained a knowledge network (the â Knowledge Workingâ (KW) initiative) across its 12 local subsidiary companies â the network was unstable, both a source and an outcome of discursive contests. Our study explores the life and death of this discourse formation, and its associated subject, the KA. A comparable study of a public agency was undertaken by Carter and Scarbrough in 2001, one of several that constitute a research agenda based on the work of Foucault (e.g. 1975) in Information Systems Research recently reviewed by Willcocks (2006). Following Schulze and Stabell, (2004), we identified five main discourse elements: â valueâ , â psychologyâ , â objectâ , â practiceâ and â structureâ . These elements have been used to analyse field data gathered in the past 3 years.

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This is a review of a submission entitled "Appreciating context in social informatics: from the outside in, and the inside out" at the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM 2006

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This is the presentation version of the paper (same title) published in the Proceedings of the 2006 Asia-Pacific Conference on Library & Information Education & Practice (ALIEP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The nature of work for librarians and information professionals are undergoing a profound transformation due to the arrival of deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS and changing information needs of users. Information professionals serving in different libraries can provide dedicated service to the society by helping to provide health care information about HIV/AIDS not only in urban setting but also in rural environment.

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This article is published in a thematic issue of Information Technology, Education and Society - on Social Informatics. / This study explores the learning process in a group, focusing on novice users of technology, by observing how they build frameworks for deep and strategic learning, the role of the communities of practice and the role of existing learning style as a context for learning. A group of LIS students in a digital library classroom was selected for the study. A pre- and post-test questionnaire and a recorded interview (where students described their experiences of achieving technological proficiency in the course) provided the data for the study. We observed that students provided narratives in which they negotiated the role of technology as tool for digital librarianship. The learning process involved interpretation and repositioning of the learning subjects. The loci of control provided the perceived membership in librarianship as a community of practice and their personal experience. The discourses created by the students emerged in relation to regulative contexts that they perceived from their position, notably the expectations of the marketplace and the profession. The personal experience involved the language of the learning contexts (music, art) that students were familiar with.