Information Work Research Articles

Rhythm of Work: Mixed-methods Characterization of Information Workers Scheduling Preferences and Practices

As processes around hybrid work, spatially distant collaborations, and work-life boundaries grow increasingly complex, managing workers' schedules for synchronous meetings has become a critical aspect of building successful global teams. However, gaps remain in our understanding of workers' scheduling preferences and practices, which we aim to fill in this large-scale, mixed-methods study of individuals' calendars in a multinational organization. Using interviews with eight participants, survey data from 165 respondents, and telemetry data from millions of meetings scheduled by 211 thousand workers, we characterize scheduling preferences, practices, and their relationship with each other and organizational factors. We find that temporal preferences can be broadly classified as either cyclical, such as suitability of certain days, or relational, such as dispersed meetings, at various time scales. Furthermore, our results suggest that these preferences are disconnected from actual practice--albeit with several notable exceptions--and that individual differences are associated with factors like meeting load, time-zones, importance of meetings to job function, and job titles. We discuss key themes for our findings, along with the implications for calendar and scheduling systems and socio-technical systems more broadly.

Staff Perspectives on the Role of Public Libraries in Facilitating College Literacy

The decision-making process for potential college students in the United States is overwhelming because of the volume of information available and the complexity of higher education systems. Prospective students must consider institutional rankings, academic programs, and financial aid opportunities in addition to completing numerous forms. For some students, there exist personal and professional advisors and resources to assist with navigating the process. Others with less social and cultural capital must figure out the system with little or no assistance while facing other barriers. Public libraries can be a resource for the college-bound community; however, research shows that public libraries are not actively engaged in supporting this user group. To provide focused, quality information services to any demographic, it is important to understand the perspectives of public-facing information workers. Through a cross-sectional online questionnaire of library staff across four states, this study sought to learn staff perspectives on the role of public libraries in serving prospective college students. The survey received 160 responses of which 100 open-ended responses pertained to the role of public libraries. Qualitative inductive analysis point to three core themes on the role of public libraries in serving this population, that of connector, provider, and supporter. A fourth theme suggests staff see the role as one for others to meet. This article provides insight into past examinations of public library support of college literacy offering an opening to further discussions on serving this overlooked user group.

Qualitative Study of Job Satisfaction with Public Information Workers

Qualitative Study of Job Satisfaction with Public Information Workers

Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Age: A Case Study of Private University Libraries in Bangalore

The digitalization of library materials is now a widespread worldwide trend and a novel method for managing library collections, particularly in academic libraries. The paper explores many factors driving digitalization and provides insights into the process and criteria for selecting digitalization initiatives. Additionally, it addresses the many concerns and obstacles associated with the digitization process in academic libraries, including legal considerations and financial matters. This research investigates the evolving aspects of electronic resources and existing procedures related to their acquisition, selection, procurement methods, promotion, development policy, challenges, and future strategies. Additionally, it emphasizes the techniques used to obtain resources and the strategy for preservation. It also acknowledges the obstacles that hinder the digitization of academic libraries. Lastly, it concludes by stating that despite the challenges, in order to execute digitalization in a regulated and controllable way, information workers and librarians need to have both the practical abilities and the vision.

Effects of AI-based technologies on employees’ work engagement: Implications for the human-centered design of digital work

An important goal of the Regional Competence Center AKzentE4.0 is to support companies in the Rhineland region in designing their digital transformation in a human-friendly way based on scientific findings. In order to derive evidence-based guidelines for the humane design of AI-supported work, further insights are needed into how the use of AI affects characteristics of humane work design and how this differs from the general use of digital technologies. To this end, a secondary analysis of a questionnaire study conducted in the context of AKzentE4.0 was carried out. The analyzed dataset included responses from N = 825 digital information workers. Two central research questions were analyzed: 1. Does the perception of work engagement differ between users and non-users of AI systems? 2. Which characteristics of human-centered work design predict work engagement when working with AI and are there differences compared to those who do not work with AI?Practical Relevance: The results show that a human-centered and humane design of AI-supported work should focus on providing meaningful tasks for employees, support from supervisors and preserving employees’ autonomy. Particularly, the aspect of meaningful work can be threatened by technology. For AI systems to be effective in the workplace in terms of maintaining health and promoting learning, care should be taken to ensure that they can support work in a targeted way and do not replace, but rather promote meaningful work tasks. Employees, with the support of their managers, should also be able to control the use of AI systems to maintain greater autonomy and agency.

A narrative on the codebreakers’ library at Bletchley Park

This article presents the first results of an investigation into the reading library that was available to codebreakers and other staff at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, between 1940 and 1946. It describes the historical context and the first findings, underlining the equal status of all formats of documents as substitutes of lived experience, from material objects to oral history sources. The study was prompted by a research visit to Bletchley Park Museum in 2021. The story of this library, in the middle of wartime secrets, constitutes a case of library history and a pretext to reflect on the identity of the professions of librarians and other information workers, and their position in the larger history of computing and information science.

Bound by Exile: Exploring Kinship Dynamics and Role Perceptions among Diaspora Journalists

ABSTRACT The escalating dangers journalists face globally have led to a marked increase in media professionals seeking safety away from their home countries. As a result, journalists are increasingly forced to choose between silence and survival, with many opting for the latter in the form of diaspora relocation. This article investigates the role of kinship in community building among diaspora journalists, highlighting how these networks impact their collaboration and resource mobilisation. Drawing from interviews (n = 12) with reporters and editors from Latin America, Hong Kong, and the Middle East, this article examines diaspora journalists’ changing roles and proactive measures in establishing inclusive information and educational infrastructures, enhancing advocacy and empowerment for their communities. Findings demonstrate how journalists leverage kinship to connect with their audiences and guide their journalistic practices, editorial choices, and technological adoption. Findings further revealed that the role of diaspora journalists is evolving into one characterised by what this article terms “civic information workers.” These civic information workers are not only reporters but also intermediaries who provide vital data and insights that facilitate the everyday life and integration of diaspora communities into new societies, thus using journalism as a tool for civic empowerment.

Prospects for a Megacity Region Transition in Australia: A Preliminary Examination of Transport and Communication Drivers

Australian governments continue to search for a model capable of planning future urban settlements at an extended spatial scale (the mega-metropolitan region) to accommodate high population growth more sustainably. Attempts at decentralisation over the past half century have failed, as state capital cities continue to sprawl in an unsustainable manner and increase their primacy at the expense of regional cities. This paper examines how two technologies, broadband and fast rail—both infrastructures capable of re-shaping space–time relationships—could underpin a transition of Australia’s largest capital cities into megacity regions by functionally integrating regional cities into their core metropolitan agglomerations. With the Melbourne megacity region as a spatial framework, changes in population and economic development are examined for Melbourne and several regional cities in Victoria following the introduction of regional fast rail (RFR) and broadband. The impact of high-speed rail (HSR) for intercity corridors in southeast England is analysed as a possible analogue for future application in Victoria. The results revealed that RFR primarily served to extend capital city suburban development. Only HSR had the capacity to ‘punch through’ and boost growth for ‘basic’ new economy industries in ‘on-line’ urban centres in corridors linked to London. High-speed broadband proved most attractive to Melbourne’s agglomeration of high-skilled information workers. Lower speed broadband services were more uniformly taken up across all centres. This discussion speculates on the impacts of these and other green economy and digitalisation drivers on prospects for a future megacity region transition in Victoria.

AI-Powered Reminders for Collaborative Tasks: Experiences and Futures

Email continues to serve as a central medium for managing collaborations. While unstructured email messaging is lightweight and conducive to coordination, it is easy to overlook commitments and requests for collaborations that are embedded in the text of free-flowing communications. Twenty-one years ago, Bellotti et al. proposed TaskMaster with the goal of redesigning the email interface to have explicit task management capabilities. Recently, AI-based task recognition and reminder services have been introduced in major email systems as one approach to managing asynchronous collaborations. While these services have been provided to millions of people around the world, there is little understanding of how people interact with and benefit from them. We explore knowledge workers' experiences with Microsoft's Viva Daily Briefing Email to better understand how AI-powered reminders can support asynchronous collaborations. Through semi-structured interviews and surveys, we shed light on how AI-powered reminders are incorporated into workflows to support asynchronous collaborations. We identify what knowledge workers prefer AI-powered reminders to remind them about and how they would like to interact with these reminders. Using mixed methods and a self-assessment methodology, we investigate the relationship between information workers' work styles and the perceived value of the Viva Daily Briefing Email to identify users who are more likely to benefit from AI-powered reminders for asynchronous collaborations. We conclude by discussing the experiences and futures of AI-powered reminders for collaborative tasks and asynchronous collaborations.

Improving Work-Nonwork Balance with Data-Driven Implementation Intention and Mental Contrasting

Work-nonwork balance is an important aspect of workplace well-being with associations to improved physical and mental health, job performance, and quality of life. However, realizing work-nonwork balance goals is challenging due to competing demands and limited resources within organizational and interpersonal contexts. These challenges are compounded by technologies that blur the boundaries of work and nonwork in the always-on work cultures. At an individual level, such challenges can be subsided through the effective application of self-regulation techniques, such as implementation intentions and mental contrasting (IIMC). Further supporting these techniques through reflection on personal data, we implement the idea of data-driven IIMC into a self-tracking and behavior planning system and evaluate it in a three-week between-participant study with 43 information workers who used our system for improving work-nonwork balance. We find evidence that reflection on personal data improves awareness of behavior plan compliance and rescheduling, which are important in realizing work-nonwork balance goals. We also observe the value of micro-reflection, reflection on limited data of the very recent past, for IIMC. Our findings highlight opportunities for automation in data collection and sense-making and for further exploring the role of data-driven IIMC as boundary negotiating artifacts in support of work-nonwork balance goals.

Meeting Bridges: Designing Information Artifacts that Bridge from Synchronous Meetings to Asynchronous Collaboration

A recent surge in remote meetings has led to complaints of Zoom fatigue" and collaboration overload," negatively impacting worker productivity and well-being. One way to alleviate the burden of meetings is to de-emphasize their synchronous participation by shifting work to and enabling sensemaking during post-meeting asynchronous activities. Towards this goal, we propose the design concept of meeting bridges, or information artifacts that can encapsulate meeting information towards bridging to and facilitating post-meeting activities. Through 13 interviews and a survey of 198 information workers, we learn how people use online meeting information after meetings are over, finding five main uses: as an archive, as task reminders, to onboard or support inclusion, for group sensemaking, and as a launching point for follow-on collaboration. However, we also find that current common meeting artifacts, such as notes and recordings, present challenges in serving as meeting bridges. After conducting co-design sessions with 16 participants, we distill key principles for the design of meeting bridges to optimally support asynchronous collaboration goals. Overall, our findings point to the opportunity of designing information artifacts that not only support users to access but also continue to transform and engage in meeting information post-meeting.

Empowering employers to address domestic violence and its impact on the workplace

Domestic violence affects all social and economic classes and age groups, but this type of public crime has traditionally not been linked to the workplace. This study sought to provide a new perspective on domestic violence by focusing on how it can be addressed in work contexts. Qualitative research was conducted based on a focus group to clarify what companies in Portugal's Algarve region know about this crime and its repercussions for the workplace. The results include recurring themes, such as domestic violence as a taboo subject, the difficulty of detecting this crime at work despite extant well-established indicators of this problem, its repercussions for teams, unawareness of specifically related labour laws and the need to train and inform workers. The findings also cover two emerging topics – corporate social responsibility and occupational health – as intervention areas. Given these results, an action plan was developed to be implemented in organisations in order to provide support to employees who are domestic violence victims.

Investigating the Role of Intercultural Mediators in Enhancing Asylum-Seeking Migrants’ Access to Health Care Services in Serbia

Migrants are especially susceptible to inequitable access to health care services and their access to health care may be further compromised by the tradition of informal patient payments in the Western Balkan countries. As a particularly vulnerable group, this study focused on the asylum-seeking migrants and the role of informal patient payments as an avenue for migrants’ health care access in Serbia. Qualitative interviews were conducted in August and September of 2018 with civil servants (intercultural mediators and information workers, n = 8) and asylum-seeking migrants ( n = 6). Data was analyzed using the phenomenological hermeneutical approach. The study showed that intercultural mediators had a pivotal role in shaping better and quicker access to health care services for asylum-seeking migrants in Serbia, which also lowered their exposure to informal patient payments. A commonness in paying informally was found in Serbia, especially due to the high value put into doctors and the lacking resources of the health care system. The asylum-seeking migrants seemed exempted from such payments. Reducing these informal patient payments for health care is highly important to facilitate equity in access to health care

The emergence of the “information have-less” class of labor in the information age and its presence in Egypt

PurposeAt the beginning of the 21st century, a new class of information workers, the “information have-less” has risen. This class of workers alleviates the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) revolution on poverty and unemployment. The purpose of this study is to investigate the presence of this class of workers in Egypt and assess the size and potential growth of this category of workers.Design/methodology/approachThe study clarifies the conceptual framework of the new division of labor, in the information age. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Information and Decision Support Center websites provided secondary data for this study. These data are used to assess the size of “the information have less” in Egypt.FindingsThe division of work and class, in the 21st century, depends on the level of skills possessed to work with ICTs. So, class and labor nowadays could be divided into self-programmable labor (Innovators). Information have-less labor class, adding value to the economy by learning skills and presenting repetitive work. Generic labor class, who cannot work with ICTs, and work in jobs, that do not need computers or other ICTs. The study has shown that the “information have-less” labor class is present in Egypt since the beginning of the 21st century, in all its categories; entrepreneurism, the service sector and the manufacturing sector. There are approximately 50% of this labor class in the service sector and only 13% of the information have-less works in manufacturing sector despite the great opportunities that Egypt has to expand manufacturing to absorb more employment. The inclusion of information technology (IT), in all domains, has not decreased employment in Western countries but has reallocated information have-less employment toward the service sector, and there would probably be the same effect in Egypt.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the need for Egyptian policymakers to encourage the manufacturing and service sectors to provide huge working opportunities. The Egyptian government has to change the educational policies, at all stages, to include digital learning skills so IT can be incorporated in a wide range of economic activities. Further research includes: conducting a survey to measure the contribution of the entrepreneurial part of the information have-less employment in Egypt. In addition, a model may be developed, by the researcher to examine the reallocation of employees in Egypt.Originality/valueStudying employment, in Egypt, using the conceptual framework of the information age is rarely being done.

Labor safety improvement at heat and power supply facilities

Improving the occupational safety management system involves the development of recommendations for implementing modern methods for assessing occupational risks and the hazards of technological processes, using effective collective and individual protection tools, making decisions on the development of investment programs intended to improve conditions and labor protection at enterprises. The purpose of the study is to analyze accidents and injuries at heat and power supply facilities and develop measures to improve occupational safety management and reduce man-made risks. The procedure for selecting an optimal method for managing occupational safety, assessing professional risks, and the method of informing about working conditions using digital technologies were used. Measures aimed to manage occupational risks at heat and power supply facilities were developed. It was recommended to involve qualified specialists and psychologists in labor safety management, to implement digital technologies to calculate the level of occupational risks and inform workers about working conditions. Recommendations on occupational safety culture as a measure aimed to improve industrial safety were given. The proposed measures may improve safety and working conditions at heat and power supply facilities, improve social responsibility and safety culture, and simplify the procedure for informing workers about occupational risks.

Spreadsheets on Interactive Surfaces: Breaking through the Grid with the Pen

Spreadsheet programs for interactive surfaces have limited manipulations capabilities and are often frustrating to use. One key reason is that the spreadsheet grid creates a layer that intercepts most user input events, making it difficult to reach the cell values that lie underneath. We conduct an analysis of commercial spreadsheet programs and an elicitation study to understand what users can do and what they would like to do with spreadsheets on interactive surfaces. Informed by these, we design interaction techniques that leverage the precision of the pen to mitigate friction between the different layers. These enable more operations by direct manipulation on and through the grid, targeting not only cells and groups of cells, but values and substrings within and across cells as well. We prototype these interaction techniques and conduct a qualitative study with information workers who perform a variety of spreadsheet operations on their own data.

Relationship between a company's adequate response to near-misses and occupational accidents: a 1-year prospective cohort study.

Near-misses in the workplace indicate potential safety hazards, and their adequate management is considered extremely important in preventing occupational accidents. However, the impact of a company's response to near-misses on the occurrence of subsequent accidents remains unclear. This study examined the relationship between the adequacy of a company's responses to near-misses and the occurrence of occupational accidents. We conducted a 1-year prospective cohort study using an online self-administered questionnaire, targeting workers in Japan. The study included 2755 participants who had experienced and reported near-misses. We categorized company responses to these near-misses as adequate, inadequate, or no response. The outcome was the incidence of occupational accidents over the past year. We calculated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs using multilevel logistic regression adjusting for covariates. Among all participants, 59.0% were in the adequate response group, 30.1% were in the inadequate response group, and 10.8% were in the no response group. In the multivariate-adjusted model, the ORs of the inadequate response and the no response groups were 1.53 (95% CI, 1.25-1.88; P < .001) and 1.75 (95% CI, 1.32-2.33; P < .001), respectively. Our results suggest that the adequacy of a company's response to near-misses reported by workers can be significantly related to the occurrence of subsequent occupational accidents. Companies need to thoroughly respond to near-misses reported by workers and adequately inform workers about the company's safety activities. This may lead to a reduction in the number of subsequent occupational accidents.

An assessment of the proficiency of library and information service (LIS) personnel in Nigeria

This purpose of this study was to assess the proficiency of library and information service (LIS) personnel in Nigeria. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data from 45 library staff attendees of 2019 workshop held at the Federal University of Lokoja by the NLA (IT) Section. A total of 38 (84% response rate) copies of the questionnaire were retrieved and analysed with frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation for the study, using SPSS software. The results revealed that librarians and information experts are knowledgeable in areas such as users’ need, information retrieval etc. Library and information service personnel have a high proficiency in ICT skills ( 3.69) and personal attributes ( 4.18). The study concluded that high level of expertise in numerous areas of librarianship possessed by library and information workers and recommended an ongoing professional development and specialized instruction in operating systems and software management.

Human responsibilities of investigative journalists in the digital age

The rapid development of information and communication technology has resulted in the disappearance of many professions globally, particularly as machines have nearly supplanted humans across various job sectors, including journalism and media. Investigative journalism (IJ) stands as a significant domain impacted by the age of digitization, marked by the surge in open information sources, remote communication technologies, data leaks, and the emergence of programs and applications capable of processing information faster, more accurately, and at a lower cost than human labor. Consequently, this has led to successive waves of employee dismissals in information production sectors, causing journalists and information workers to grapple with anxiety concerning the stability and security of their professional future. This study aimed to investigate the responsibilities and tasks that human journalists can still effectively fulfill within the realm of IJ amidst the advancements in information and communication technology. Through a qualitative approach, in-depth email interviews were conducted with nine journalists specializing in IJ, employing thematic coding analysis. The findings revealed five areas in which human journalists can outperform machines in conducting IJ, including decision-making, storytelling, report planning, information and data analysis, and investigation direction. Moreover, the study proposed five essential measures to safeguard the human role in investigative reporting. These measures encompassed journalist training initiatives, a focus on younger cohorts, the implementation of paid experimental work, the establishment of dedicated pathways for investigative work within press institutions, and the amplification of competitions and awards centered on IJ.

Interrupting the Criminalization of Information in the Academic Library Classroom

Libraries have long been involved in conversations around book banning and censorship. The American Library Association noted that librarians and information workers in 2022 witnessed the most documented attempts at banning books ever recorded. This is in lockstep with contemporary examples of legislative efforts to censor, ban, and by extension criminalize information. The criminalization of information is one that has a direct impact on library users as well as academic freedom. In an effort to best support scholars at all levels in the University, academic teaching librarians will need to develop strategies to approach the information classroom. Understanding that book bans and censorship are a form of criminalization allows us to be in conversation with scholarship that focus on how to combat criminalization such as abolitionist pedagogy. This article introduces core concepts of abolitionist pedagogy as a means to create new educational justice pathways and to interrupt information criminalization.