the eyes of the power company workplace information practices of a vault inspector

8/11/2019 The Eyes of the Power Company Workplace Information Practices of a Vault Inspector

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[Library Quarterly, vol. 77, no. 2, pp. 157179]

2007 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

0024-2519/2007/7702-0004$10.00

THE EYES OF THE POWER COMPANY: WORKPLACEINFORMATION PRACTICES OF A VAULT INSPECTOR1

Tiffany C. Veinot2

To date, LIS studies of workplace information practices have primarily focused onoccupations that require a university education, and, consequently, little is knownabout the information practices of blue-collar workers. This study uses a qualitativecase study approach to examine the workplace information practices of a blue-collar workera vault inspector at a hydroelectric utility company. Using socialpractice theory as a framework, this article argues that vault inspection is a practiceinvolving situated judgment, embodiment, educated perception, finding and nav-igating, and classification. This article also asserts that the practice of vault inspec-tion produces documents that act as boundary objects that dynamically connectdisparate parts of the organization and meet a range of organizational informationrequirements. This suggests that vault inspection is an information practice.

Introduction

We all use electricity but rarely consider it deeply, aside from uncommon

power outages or blackoutsor an escalating power bill. But across Can-ada, and indeed around the world, much work and infrastructure provideus with the electricity that we take for granted. In Canada, electricity orig-inates at generating stations, such as those located at water dams andnuclear reactors, and travels at extremely high voltages through inter-mediary stations and transmission lines across the country [1]. And closerto where it is used, a network of power lines and transformers ensurespoint-of-service delivery of electricity to businesses, homes, and public re-sources such as street and traffic lights. We see power lines above groundand, perhaps, have seen workers scaling poles to repair broken hydro lines.

1. I would like to express my gratitude to Pamela McKenzie, Sanna Talja, and several anon-ymous reviewers for useful feedback that helped to strengthen this article.

2. PhD candidate, The University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Information and MediaStudies, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7; E-mail [email protected].


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158 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

In many cities, however, there is also a vast network of wires and trans-formers underground, under the sidewalks, near driveways, and behindbuildingsin fact, they are likely near where you live and work, silentlykeeping your lights on, your heat or air conditioner humming, or yourcomputer processing. And although we usually experience it as seamless,considerable equipment, labor, and expertise keep the electricity running.It is this behind-the-scenes work, and its associated information practices,that this article will attempt to render visible.

To date, library and information science (LIS) studies of work-relatedinformation practices have largely focused on people in occupations thatrequire a university education, such as scholars [27] and professionals[8, 9]. Bucking this overall trend, Elfreda Chatman conducted research

on the information environments of janitors in the American South [10,11]; this occupation requires on-the-job training with no prior educationalpreparation. Where blue-collar workers have been discussed in LIS liter-ature, it has been in research about the information needs and uses oflabor union officials [1215] or in practice-oriented publications aboutpublic library services for workers or their unions [1620]. In contrast,some work conducted in other fields deals with both blue-collar workersand topics relevant to information studies. Notably, several scholars havesought to document and validate the undervalued knowledge that blue-collar workers possess [2123] and to explore apprenticeship [24] and on-the-job learning [22, 25]. Researchers have also documented the impactsof technological change on blue-collar workers [2628]. While developinga rich picture of the work settings, knowledge, and experiences of working-

class people, these studies have not yet focused on the workplace infor-mation practices of blue-collar workers. Moreover, the genre of researchthat has been termed workplace studies, which locates itself in the fieldsof ethnomethodology, anthropology, and systems design, has primarily con-sidered office-based environments, such as control centers for air trafficcontrol [29]. However, many people work in outside locations, at factories,or other types of nonoffice settings.

As a result of these trends in the literature, little is known about thework-related information practices of the large class of occupations thatrequire a college education, apprenticeship, and/or a secondary schooleducation and occupation-specific training [30]. In 2001, there were4,662,120 workers employed in such occupations in Canada, whichamounts to 29.95 percent of the workforce [31]. Thus, the information

practices of a very significant portion of the workforce have been effectivelyoverlooked. This case study of information practices centers on an em-ployee in an electricity distribution company. Kelly is a vault inspector,

which means that she acts as the eyes of her employer, physically visiting,


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WORKPLACE INFORMATION PRACTICES 159

evaluating, and sometimes repairing electrical equipment in the under-ground of a Canadian city.

Since the 1980s and 1990s, a key perspective in the research literatureon information practices has been a user-centered perspective, or whathas been termed constructivism [32]. User-centered work includes a fo-cus on individual mental structures or mental models [3335] or an in-dividual users active construction of meaning or sense [3638]. In this

work, information needs, seeking, and use are generally treated as pro-cesses undertaken by individuals, as influenced by their tasks, social con-texts, or situations [32, 39].

Constructivist information practices research has been criticized for itsindividualism [34, 4043] and for an inadequate attention to sociocultural

issues [40, 41, 4345]. To address these criticisms, a number of scholarshave called for greater development of social approaches to informationpractices research [32, 34, 41, 4347]. Flowing from this, a growing bodyof socially oriented information practices research has emerged, largelyassociated with social constructionism [41, 4851], sociocognitive per-spectives [34, 5255], and science and technology studies [47, 56]. In itsfocus on the information work of vault inspection as social practice, thisarticle contributes to the growing body of work that views informationpractices as a social phenomenon. In particular, this research builds onthe increasing application of social practice theory to understanding thesocial organization of workplace action [57].

Theoretical Framework: Social Practice Theory

Social practice theory is founded in the diverse works of philosophers in-cluding Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and Ludwig Wittgenstein; thelate works of Michel Foucault; and empirical works in ethnomethodology,gender studies, and the social studies of science [58, 59]. According toEtienne Wengers influential work on social learning, practice involvesdoing in a historical and social context that gives structure and meaningto what we do [60, p. 47]. This concept includes both the explicit, suchas language, tools, documents, and images, and the tacit, such as untoldrules of thumb, embodied understandings, conventions, and implicit re-lations [60]. Similarly, Theodore Schatzki notes that practice theory in-

volves an understanding of practice as embodied, materially mediatedarrays of human activity centrally organized around shared practical un-derstanding [59, p. 2], activities which Andreas Reckwitz also describes

as routinized [58, p. 249]. In practice theory, the basic unit of analysisis practice, or sets of actions [61, p. 48] that are based on the intercon-nectedness of their various, nonreducible elements [58, p. 250]. The con-cept of practice is social, in that it is a type of behaving and understanding


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that appears at different locales and at different points in time and iscarried out by different body/minds [58, p. 250]. The single individual,both bodily and mentally, is thus a carrier of a given practice, or ofmultiple practices [58, p. 250]and although individuals may provide a

window to understanding practice, practice theory is considered incom-patible with individualism [62].

The concepts of embodiment and situation are central to social practicetheory. Practice theory contains a unique understanding of the body [58],

which highlight[s] embodied capacities such as know-how, skills, tacitunderstanding, and dispositions as the basis of activity [59, p. 7]. A socialpractice is thus the product of training the body in a certain way [58, p.251], with an understanding that bodies are also constituted in social prac-

tices [59, p. 2]. Similarly, the concept of embodied knowledge relies onbodily or practical experience that is context specific, or that which islearned by doing [63, p. 490]. Related to this is Lucy Suchmans conceptof situated action, which supports a view that every course of actiondepends in essential ways upon its material and social circumstances [64,p. 49]. These concepts together create a vision of a specific, sensual nowin which practice occurs and a resource of embodied knowledge availableto that practice.

Enacting the Rules as PracticeAnother important component of practice theory is its critique of the ideathat rules form an underlying structure for action or cause different actionsto take place [65]. An approach that treats rules as structuring action is

evident in information practices research through the work of Chatman,who treated the concept of social norms as a form of social control[6668]. For instance, Chatmans theory of information poverty positsthat social norms affect information exchange by setting the parametersaround the communication process [68, p. 204], and her theory of nor-mative behavior asserts that social norms provide a predictable, routineand manageable approach to everyday reality, which directs human in-formation behavior toward maintaining a normative way of life [66, p.13].

In contrast to this approach, Wittgenstein argues that following rulesinvolves considerable unarticulated background understanding, thus com-ing to the assertion that obeying a rule is a practice [65, 4548]. Thecritique of the idea that rules form a structure for action contains three

main arguments. First, there is a difference between a formula and itsenactment: A rule doesnt apply itself; it has to be applied, and this mayinvolve difficult, finely tuned judgments [65, p. 57]. Rules can never besufficiently exhaustive to keep instances of rule-following behavior identicalacross the diverse situations in which rules are followed [64, p. 101]. As


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such, the task of following rules is to bring canonical descriptions ofobjects and actions to bear on actual objects and embodied actions [64,p. 101]. Second, the notion of rules structuring human action does notrecognize the reciprocal relationship between rule and action. In other

words, even as rules direct action, action also changes the nature of rules.Practices not only fulfill rules but also give rules a concrete shape in par-ticular circumstances [65, p. 57]. Charles Taylor thus concludes that therule is, at any given time, what practice has made it [65, p. 58]. Third,rules leave out what may be crucial factors in action [65]. For instance,rules are often used as a resource for retrospective accounts of what wasdone in a given circumstance. This is at least in part because they filterout everything . . . that the instructions fail to mention in carrying out

the activity, thus treating them as noise [64, p. 102]. This suggests thatkey aspects or facilitators of action are not articulated in a given rule.Several case studies of work practices have supported this complex view

of what it means to follow rules. In his case study of the work of a Dutchpublic administrator, Hendrik Wagenaar argues that the actors who areengaged in a particular activity together produce the proper activitythrough their emerging understanding of what is right or fitting in thatparticular situation [69, p. 644]. In dealing with a problematic situation

where she was required to act, this public administrator displayed a prag-matic approach to applying rules in which she assessed possible alternativesolutions using background knowledge and experience, including herknowledge of rules, in order to gauge the effects of potential solutions onthe existing body of rules [69]. Additionally, Wengers case study of claims

administrators included the insight that policies, metrics, training pro-grams, and systems were at odds with the reality of their work [60]. Con-sequently, claims administrators collectively constructed a local practicethat made it possible to meet the demands of their institutional employer.This practice generated perspectives and terms and provided resolutionsto institutionally generated conflicts [60]. And finally, in their case studyof air traffic controllers, Richard Harper and John Hughes [70] assert thatrules contained in the Manual of Air Traffic Servicesact as resources in thepractice of air traffic control and furnish those who do the work with waysof seeing and recognizing things and activities as relevant features of the

work [70, p. 5]. In contrast to the rules, which are static, air traffic controlis conducted in real time, and as such there are always contingencies andunplanned realities to confront [70]. As such, controllers culture includes

a recognition of the artfulness of using rules and procedures as well as theability to anticipate likely problems [70].

Using social practice theory as a framework, I will argue that, despite itsfocus on following rules, vault inspection is an active, material, and situatedpractice. I will do so by discussing case study data that show Kellys situated


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judgment, embodiment, educated perception, her work of finding andnavigating, and her classification practices.

Theoretical Framework: Boundary Objects

From its origins in science and technology studies, the concept of bound-ary object has been used to understand how work is coordinated acrossdiverse groups [47]. Boundary objects inhabit intersecting social worldsand satisfy the informational requirements of each of them [71, p. 393].

As such, these objects act as a means of translation between differentenvironments and help to maintain coherence across these different

worlds [71, p. 393]. One of the types of boundary objects found in a casestudy of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology was standardized forms, which

facilitate communication across dispersed work groups [71]. Susan LeighStar notes that standardized forms do not include any local uncertainties,thus permitting transport across more than one social world [71, p. 411].

Similarly, in her work as a vault inspector, Kelly observes, interprets, anddocuments phenomena for use by a variety of other types of employeesthrough the use of coding practices and common forms. Thus, I will arguethat, as a part of vault inspection, Kelly produces a boundary object thatdynamically connects and coordinates a range of organizational activities,thus satisfying a range of organizational information requirements. In thissense, I argue that vault inspection may be considered an informationpractice.

Methods

This qualitative case study involved an in-depth, semistructured interview[72] that focused on a vault inspectors job-related tasks, work setting,

work-related knowledge, and information practices (see the appendix forthe interview guide). Relevant work-related documents were also analyzed.

While this research involves the in-depth study of the information practicesof only one individual, this is in keeping with the principles of case studymethods, which highlight the particularity of cases and aim to provideinsight into a given issue by exploring either single or multiple cases in-depth [73]. Data have been analyzed inductively using the constant com-parative method [74] in order to generate significant themes and to com-pare them to the chosen theoretical frameworks and literature on

information practices in occupations and workplaces that resemble vaultinspection. Names of individuals, organizations, and locations have beenchanged to protect participant anonymity. This study was approved by TheUniversity of Western Ontarios Non-Medical Research Ethics Board.


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Findings

Background: The Institutional Context of Vault InspectionKelly works in the hydroelectric public utility sector in Canada, whereprovincial monopolies have historically dominated [1, 75, 76]. Kelly worksfor a local electricity distribution company (the power company) thathas a local monopoly regulated by the Province of Ontarios Energy Board.The role of vault inspectors depends on the extent to which a given elec-tricity distribution company provides electricity via an underground net-

work. For instance, in many rural areas of Canada, power is deliveredprimarily, even exclusively, though overhead lines. However, in cities, un-derground networks are often preferred for reasons of economy, efficiency,

and appearance. In the city where Kelly works, the underground networkof wiring and transformers is extensive, with thousands of undergroundtransformers providing point-of-service electricity. The purpose of trans-formers is to step down, or convert, electricity that is at a higher voltagefor the purposes of travel to a lower voltage that can be used by residencesand industry (see fig. 1 for images of transformers).

Within the power company, a position gradually evolved where a specificgroup of workers inspects and maintains underground transformers. The

work began as a light duties job for workers injured in other pursuits,where tasks were informal, and, as Kelly describes it, They didnt do a lotback then. All they would literally do is either drive by it just to make surethere were no flames coming out of it, or they would just open the hatchwayand look down to make sure there was no water. However, a convergence

of factors led to the increasing complexity and formalization of the work.First, there has been a growth in legislation governing the work, such asincreased regulation about how often electrical equipment must be in-spected [77, 78]. Second, some serious accidents increased the power com-panys determination to become stricter about maintenance.

The Practice of Vault InspectionVault inspectors work outside, traveling from location to location in trucks,generally visiting twenty separate locations each day. They wear orangeuniforms, reflective tape, work boots, and, when necessary, hard hats andglovesand are therefore a very visible presence in the city. They work

with a single partner on an ongoing basis and receive daily routes from acrew leader. Vaults that contain transformers are rooms located anywhere

from ten to fifty feet underground.When vault inspectors visit a transformer, they are charged with exam-

ining it, writing reports, repairing certain classes of problems, and main-taining the physical space around the transformer. Kelly summarizes her


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Fig.1.Images of transformers


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work as follows: What I have to do is try to help maintain the transformersand inspect them in various locations. So basically I go to work in themorning and Im given a route thats evenly distributed across [City] in

various categories, from network to URD to 4KB to 27-6. . . . I go aroundto different transformers and vaults and write up reports on whats hap-pening and observe what condition theyre in and write reports for furthermaintenance.

Because they work outside, vault inspectors are highly affected by theweather and seasons. For instance, vault inspectors must spend increasingamounts of time monitoring extremely hot equipment in the hottest daysof summer as customers increasingly use their air conditioners and fans:So, in the summer, its like massively hot in the underground because the

transformers, some of them are, like 80 degrees Celsius. So theres two ofthem in there in a very small space, and its very, very hotespecially whenyoure on top of the transformers taking load readings and stuff.

Safety concerns are central to the work of vault inspectors. Constantlymoving, vault inspectors use a two-way radio throughout the day to com-municate their whereabouts to a dispatcher and coordinate their safety.

Additionally, vault inspectors must have first aid certification: We alwayshave to be able and willing to save our partner in an emergency.

Kellys major work tasks are dictated by legislation and regulations. Sheimplements parts of the Minimum Inspection Requirements of the On-tario Energy Boards Distribution System Code [78], which the power com-pany must comply with to maintain its license as an electricity distributor.The code specifically outlines the types of defects that she is responsible

for detecting visually [78] and the time within which inspections must takeplace [78]. However, the power company exceeds these requirements:[the power company] decided that they wanted to have a better main-tenance schedule to try to stop the explosions from happening, and alsoto figure out why they were happening, gather the data, and also to havea better maintenance plan.

Situated Judgment

As described above, an extensive body of legislation and rules govern Kellyswork. However, in support of practice theorys critique of the view thatrules structure action, Kellys account of her work demonstrates the situ-ated judgment involved in the rule-bound work of inspecting transformers:

Like you dont want to be reporting every single little thing, but you want to makesure that whatever you do write is significant. Any time I write anything down, likeif I say, oh, theres a problem, and it has to be looked at, then they send a crewout to look at it, so I have to make sure that its worth sending a crew, like to take


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them off of something else, to send a mechanic out to take a closer look at whatever.

So definitely its in trying to have a good assessment, whether a problems worthy,

or whether its just something that can be monitored.

Kelly understands the institutional aspects of the situation at handthather assessment of the transformers necessarily engages the resources ofother departments. Thus, she selects a course of action using her under-standing of the institutional context, her knowledge of how long trans-formers can last with specific problems, and her experience in conductingassessments.

As with the claims administrators described previously, Kelly describessituations where the rules do not match the realities of doing her work,

situations that stimulate vault inspectors to work together to find a solution:Sometimes we would discuss . . . the problems were having, like if werehaving problems with the forms that were sent down to us . . . like if theinformation on them is wrong . . . theyre supposed to have drawings ofthe transformers and the secondaries coming out of the vaults, and some-times there are a lot of problems with that. . . . Or well discuss . . .problems because of the weather, like were not allowed to take load read-ings during different temperatures. So well talk about what other crewsare doing to try to make that work. This collective problem solving furtherdemonstrates the social, situated nature of the judgment involved in vaultinspection.

Embodiment

In keeping with practice theory, Kellys account of her work is also fullyembodied. Most vividly, her embodied experience is brought to life in herdescription of the rationale for her uniform. In contrast to the abstractlanguage of the legislation governing her clothing, Kelly frames these rulesin terms of risks to her body. She wears fire-resistant clothing just in case

we have an electrical flashover and catch on fire, it will not ignite so easily.She must wear 100 percent cotton so that if we do catch on fire in a vault,

with the oil and everything, that they can peel the clothing off of ourbodies. Because if you do have severe burns, if we do have anything man-made material, then it will actually stick to your skin, it will actually beembedded in your skin. And she wears grounded work boots so that way,if we do come into contact with anything live, electricity tries to take the

shortest route, so basically if you werent wearing proper boots, then itwould just go right through our foot. So this way, were not as easy toconduct electricity, because theres nowhere for it to go unless were touch-ing something else. This account helps elucidate that vault inspection issomething Kelly does with her body, in the present, in specific settings.


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Educated PerceptionAn important aspect of vault inspection practice is educated perception,which includes both seeing and sensing. In each vault, there is a range ofphenomena to observethe setting of the vault, vault structure, the variouscomponents of the transformer, the protector, and the load on the variousducts by which the electricity is distributed from the transformer. In eachcase, Kelly perceives a complicated visual terrain, finds what is importantin the situation for the task at hand, and makes judgments about what shesees. Charles Goodwin argues that such educated seeing is central to pro-fessional vision, the ability to see a meaningful event is not a transparent,psychological process but instead a socially situated activity [79, p. 606].Thus, when discussing the work of airport personnel, he argues that the

act of looking at airplanes is densely structured by larger organizationalpractices . . . as well as the tool-mediated organization of participantsaccess to the objects in their working environment, and the communitythat sustains such practices [80, p. 2]. Thus, for airport personnel, air-planes are not isolated objects but task relevant and hold positions in larger

webs of activity [80]. Similarly, Kelly looks at the transformer in a task-relevant way, for the purposes of assessing its working condition and itslikelihood of failure.

Kellys process of looking at the transformer is also quite physicalsheclimbs a ladder to look at the top of the transformer, then climbs downand physically opens the protector and assesses its condition. She operatesan amp meter, physically separating relevant wires and placing the meternext to them in order to take load readings. She places heat guns next to

portions of the equipment to find places where friction may indicate lackof oil. And her physical ability to perceive temperature is an importantcapacity in identifying potential problems, since a vault that is hotter thanit should be is one of the signs of potential overload. As such, Kellys bodybecomes a vital tool for assessing transformers. An analogous type of kin-esthetically based assessment has been described among photocopy repairtechnicians, who know how a machine should feel and use sounds toidentify what is happening with a machine or to identify signs of mechanicaldistress [81].

Finding and NavigatingGiven that she visits an average of twenty locations a day, a key componentof Kellys practice of vault inspection involves locating vaults and traveling

to them through the streets of an urban center. Such work is never assimple as it appears. Locating vaults requires use of documents providedby the power company, and these documents are variously comprehensive.One of the better systems is a system of location numbers, which a trained

vault inspector can easily interpret. However, in other regions of the city,


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Kelly says, they have no location names, all it is is a location number,which tells you the voltage, basically, and just an address number. And theyhave them in the front of the buildings, in the back of the buildings, Imean they have them in townhouse complexes so its very, very difficultto find. So if we absolutely cannot find it, like sometimes peoples backyardsare fenced, and people build decks over top of them, they just go un-maintained for years and years and years . . . its still a matter of findingthem all. In these cases, maps provide only a general sense of the vaultslocation because they include only underground cables but not the actualtransformer.

In his study of naval vessel navigation, Edwin Hutchins describes thetechnique of reconciling a map to surrounding territory as the parsing

of two rich visual scenes (the chart and the world) and then establishingcorrespondences between them based on a complicated set of conventions[82, p. 285]. Similarly, Kelly describes one such creative reconciliationbetween maps and reality: the maps are so vague, you see the line goingaround and you try to calculate out how far it is from the sidewalk so youcan try to figure out if its in somebodys backyard . . . [you] get thegeneral gist of where it is.

ClassificationCoding schemes have been defined as a systematic practice that is usedto transform the world into categories and events that are relevant to the

work of [a] profession [79, p. 608]. The process of classifying the colorof dirt in archaeology on forms has been described as a complicated pro-

cess, requiring physical, cognitive, and perceptual work [79]. Although acoding scheme structures archaeologists perceptions, finding the correctcategory is not a straightforward task because of the fact that reality doesnot always precisely match the available colors on the chart [79].

In her completion of inspection forms, Kelly also uses a coding schemethat is not always straightforward in its application. This scheme involvesapplying a series of categories that simultaneously rate the condition ofthe equipment and make recommendations for action that are applied tonumerous categories of equipment. These categories range from 1 Ex-cellent Working Condition to 5 FailedEmergency Repair Required.Kelly gave examples of what would be included in these categories whilerating them, which are summarized below in table 1.

As is evident from the above examples, Kelly must use situated judgment

in order to assign categories to the phenomena she observes. She needsto be able to judge what is a small crack versus a large crack in slabs; sheneeds to be able to differentiate surface rust from problematic rust andto know the difference between small and large amounts of sediment on


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TABLE 1Examples of Each Rating

Rating Examples

0N/A Feature is not present1 Excellent working condition No visible problems2 Minor wearworking as required The hatchway is starting to get surface rust and

small holes The transformer is starting to rust, but it is not

flaking; there is only a rusty appearance Minor pebbling or small cracks in the slabs

3 Major wear/failedrepaired dur-ing inspection

Bolts in the hatchway replaced Wiping off the probes of the sump pump; fid-

dle with it a bit to make sure it is OK4 Major wear/failedscheduled cor-

rective repair required

Oil leaks anywhere on the transformer or oil on

the floor of the vault Larger cracks in the cement on the vault ceiling Hatchway panels have fallen off or are about to Anything that requires someone to look at

things soon The top of the protector has a large buildup of

sediment5 Failedemergency repair required Smoke is coming out of something

The casing of the transformer is not grounded Any sign of overload Excessive heat in area, transformer is running

excessively hot There is no oil at all in the transformer

top of the transformer. She must also be able to identify overloading equip-ment by identifying temperatures that do not fit a patterna transformerthat is running hot compared with the others she has seen that day, wiresthat are running hotter than others. Each of these categorizations requiresthat Kelly make relative choices between poles that are not necessarilyextreme in realityquantities of a little versus too much.

Even in cases where there is a straightforward present/not present judg-ment to make in classification, the categorization is not always clear. Forinstance, Kelly describes a situation where a clear visual cue on a trans-former proved to be incorrect:

Its an emergency situation if theres no oil in the transformers. So if it leaks allout, or sometimes it evaporates because of usage . . . we would say, there is a no-show or there is no oil in this transformer. And then that would make themechanics drop absolutely drop everything theyre doing and run to that locationand resolve the problem. But then they were at odds [with us] because we werejust looking at it as a black and white thing, that it said zero on the gauge, but


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Fig.2.Vault inspection form

that doesnt really mean zero, like there could be an oil level anywhere on thetransformer.

The mechanics therefore asked them to take your hand or laser gun andtake the temperature down and see, you can feel it and see where the oilstops and starts from the differences in temperature.

Because assessments may not be clear, Kelly provides comments on theinspection form to clarify her ratings and to cover herself, particularly


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Fig.2.(Continued)

if she is ordering that work be done by others. Thus, in a case like thatdescribed above, she might write: it appears that theres no oil in thegauge, but theres no oil on the floor, and the temperature seems to showthat there is oil in the transformer. As with archaeologists work, com-pleting the inspection form is a complex process.

The Vault Inspection Form as a Boundary ObjectAs a key mandate for her position, Kelly fills out reports about the conditionof transformers many times throughout a given day: Basically, my majortasks would be to fill out our form or report. In the report, everything isnumerically graded. . . . Its rated on what the condition is, whether itneeds attention, whether it needs fixing right away, whether its an emer-gency. So basically we go through and we rate, or whether we fix it ourselves

when were there. . . . Then I have to check it to see if theres any over-loads. . . . I take load readings, so I have a meter which tells you what theload is. (See figs. 2 and 3 for a sample inspection form and a sample loadreading schematic.) Thus, as described previously, Kellys practice of cod-ing converts what she sees into a report that is actionable by other de-


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Fig.3.Load reading diagram

partments at the power companya phenomenon consistent with the con-cept of boundary objects.

After Kelly submits her inspection forms, another employee enters the

information on these forms into a common database. The informationthat Kelly produces on the condition of the vaults is then used for a numberof purposes in the organization. As Kelly describes it: Were the ones thatactually generate work for the tradespeople . . . jointers and electricalmechanics. . . . And we generate work for the construction departmentbecause theyre the ones that have to rebuild different transformer vaults. . . and we are basically the catalyst for all the information to the engineersand to the planning department. The planning department has to use allof our data and our readings and things like that so that they can planother areas.

As with the concept of boundary objects, diverse audiences use the re-ports that Kelly completes, taking from them the information that theyrequire for their purposes. As such, Kellys reports act as a tool that co-

ordinates the work of others, data for statistical analysis, a basis for planningnew vaults, and a resource for resolving problems of equipment failure.Therefore, I assert that, in the practice of vault inspection, Kelly producesa boundary object that dynamically connects and coordinates a range oforganizational activities, thereby satisfying a range of organizational infor-


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mation requirements. This suggests that vault inspection is an informationpractice.

Conclusion

This study took a qualitative, case study approach to the information prac-tices of a vault inspector in a power company. Using social practice theoryand the concept of boundary objects as a theoretical framework, I haveargued that vault inspection is an information practice. Specifically, I haveasserted that enacting the rules of vault inspection is not a straightforwardor routine task. Kelly uses her understanding of both the equipment and

her organizational context in applying the rules and works with her col-leagues to find local solutions to problems with rule application. Kellyswork is an embodied practice, where she uses educated perceptual skills,navigational skills, and situated judgment to observe and classify phenom-ena. Moreover, the chief mandate of vault inspectors is to produce a reportthat connects and coordinates the work of a range of other players withinthe power company. This suggests that the practice of vault inspection isan information practice.

This study contributes an important body of LIS research that viewsinformation practices as a social phenomenon by applying social practicetheory, with its explicit focus on embodiment and situation, to informationpractices. Additionally, this research is in dialogue with other LIS schol-arship that demonstrates the ways in which knowledge and information

are products of social practices, such as Bernd Frohmanns examinationof the role of scientific papers in the enterprise of scientific knowledgeproduction [56] and Nancy van Houses research on the knowledge prac-tices of biodiversity professionals in the context of their use of digitallibraries [83, 84]. Accordingly, I suggest that a social practice perspectiveholds much promise for exploring information practices in their materiallymediated and local contexts.

This research also challenges stereotypes that blue-collar workers are notusers or producers of information at work, allowing us to widen our per-spective regarding how information is produced and used in workplaces.By focusing on the information that is used and created by blue-collar

workers, we can gain a greater insight into the role of embodiment inworkplace knowledge and of the wide array of forms that information

can take in the lives of workers.Suchman argues that our present-day preoccupation with the concept

of knowledge work implicitly contrasts this work with manual labor,which is defined as more or less routine [85, p. 29]. Suchman suggeststhat this is a false dichotomy, where routine, mundane aspects of knowledge


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For each question mentioned, ask:a. How did you go about finding the answer?Probes: What sources did you consult? What did you find out from each of these sources?b. What happened? Did you find the information you were looking

for? If not, what did you do?12. Do you ever talk to other outside workers about things that help you

do your work but that are not part of your official duties?Probes: What do you talk about? Have you learned anything helpful in the process? If so, what? Have you given any information, tips or advice to other people?

If so, what?Thank you very much for participating in this interview!

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