Municipios donde se ejecuta el trabajo de campo

Q1 How do respondents characterize “gaps” in sense-making as they engage in their work?

Q2 How do respondents characterize the role of organizational structures in their sense- making processes while engaged in their work?

Q2 Does the Sense-Making methodology offer a means for insight into the sense-making behaviors of hospital librarians?

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participant narratives. The first question is inextricably linked to the second, and both are really an attempt to deconstruct the overarching question of how hospital librarians make sense of their worlds. It is understood in this study that results are ungeneralizable to any individuals but the ones whose narratives are text for inquiry. How respondents characterize gaps could be viewed as a simple question about what is seen, but it is not so simple. Hospital librarians occupy a complex environment, and an attempt to describe it is incomplete and – to the outside observer – inaccurate for reasons that will be discussed later, in Chapter Five.

To begin with, a model that integrates Dervin’s original Sense-Making path, and my conceptualization of the Weick sense-making path is shown and used as a way to frame

discussion. Next, several participant narratives will be discussed within a framework provided by the path model, with discussion about their sense-making journeys. Following this section, a discussion of emergent themes will expand upon the intermingled, emergent concepts of librarian identity and librarians within their organizations, viewed from the perspective of how these elements appear to have affected their sensemaking. Question three will explore and assess the use of the Dervin metatheoretical model in conducting this research.

4.2.1 An Integrated Sense-making Path

The work of Weick and Dervin and their models of sense-making paths were previously discussed in Chapter Two. These models have been used to guide understanding of the sense- making paths of hospital librarians interviewed in this research, attempting to mesh the

organizational perspective of Weick with the categorical approach of Dervin, as well as melding the seven Weickian precepts for sense-making with compatible aspects of Dervin’s Sense- Making metatheoretical perspective. It was not until I attempted to rebuild the sense-making paths of hospital librarians that I understood the compatibility of the two theories. This

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understanding is illustrated by use of several participant narratives, shown in the framework of a unified sense-making path, and then fleshed out by discussion. By using these narratives I hope to answer the questions posed in this research. Although the limitations of time precluded in- depth discussion of each of the 22 librarians’ situations and sense-making, a tabular format is used in Appendix H to provide more information about each narrative.

Figure 7. The sense-making path, overview

The Model

Figure 7 is an expanded version of the Weick sense-making path shown earlier in this document (Figure 3). The image shows a partial conception of the sense-making path used by hospital librarians in this research. The entire pathway depicts the process of sense-making, which is continuous.

130 The Sense-Made World

To begin with, Weick posits the prior existence of an individual’s sense-made world, which differs from the Dervin model only in that Weick names the world (but does not interpret its meaning) and Dervin supports the idea that individuals must name their own worlds. In Weickian terms, the individual’s sense-made world is shown here as “the flow of stable meaning,” with meanings made during prior events comprising the text of the world. The existing sense-made world is built of tacit, explicit, and cultural information, and it comprises this moment’s understanding. This point is made carefully in order to lay some ground for the next part, which is an event that occurs, affecting the individual in some way. While people may constantly query their understanding without losing a step, for the purposes of this research, the Stop of sense-making mandates a more noticeable pause.

The Event or Stop

When an event occurs, the individual recognizes its existence because he or she often has no choice. Some element of the world has shifted, and in order to continue, the next part of the sense-making journey must be taken. The new information of the event is never context-free, and so it is not solely an object; instead, it contains a collation of meanings.

Query of Congruence

Weick describes the act of noticing a difference, using the tale of an ICU nurse who (nearly unconsciously) is made aware of differences in a neonatal patient’s state (2005). This awareness is held up against known patterns, and if the pattern is sufficiently discrepant, a change of attention on the part of the observer is made. Signals (cues) are queried, and these are collated to compare with known texts (neonatal infants with problems, or healthy neonates). Lack of congruence is the point at which sense-making is often depicted as occurring, for it is at

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this time that individuals realize their deficit situation, or a clash between what is understood and new information. However, the act of sense-making is communicative, as defined by Dervin, and organizational, in terms of the same meaning imposed by Weick: The sense-making of hospital librarians is done with awareness of the collectivity, and this awareness is an important textual component in sense-making for each of the participants who shared their narratives in this research.

The Gap

The gap consists of that time when attention is drawn to a difference, and it continues through interrogation of circumstances held against the texts of tacit, explicit, and contextual understandings in order to remake sense. In Dervin’s methodology, questions are posed about how this gap is viewed in terms of how it affects the ability to resume movement; what choices are seen as feasible in order to move beyond a stopped state; and expectations about the effects and difficulty of choices that are available. Limitations were encountered in identifying the actual effects of acquired information, as for a number of participants, the situation was still ongoing at the time of the interviews.

The Resumed Flow of Stable Meaning

Figure 8 depicts a return to the flow of stable meaning. However, rather than being a return to the original, pre-gap state, the new state is comprised of a changed collation of information. Changes that have occurred might include additions of new information, formerly tacit information made explicit in some form, and formerly explicit information now interpreted using new, changed understanding. The concept of enactment is demonstrated here from gap realization, to interrogation, to returned stability, with new (changed) information; if the world is sense-built, it has now been rebuilt, or at least altered.

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