Paper Short Abstract:

Based on an international study on public libraries, we argue that the concept of infrastructure serves as a boundary object (Leigh Star) to create trans-disciplinary research. Scholars, librarians, patrons and other stakeholders work together to strengthen practices of care in and for libraries.

Paper Abstract:

Based on research in the international, EU-funded project “Infrastructuring Libraries in Transformation” (ILIT) on public libraries in Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands, we argue that the concept of infrastructure may serve as a “boundary object” (Leigh Star) in trans-disciplinary research. This allows us to conceptualise the shared ground where academics of different disciplinary backgrounds, librarians, patrons and other stakeholders work together to strengthen practices of care in and for libraries.

Why and how does the notion of infrastructure allow for non-consensual cooperation as a boundary object (Leigh Star)? We will describe how we replace it by “infrastructuring” when discussing within the interdisciplinary project team and turn it into the political verb “librarising” (Rivano-Eckerdal) to suit our specific research field. With regard to our transdisciplinary partners we are stretching it to include the social (Klinenberg), a notion that is widely shared in the field of libraries. We elaborate how this helps to (1) delineate a shared ground where interdisciplinary practice (anthropology, geography, political science, library studies) meets the world of librarians, patrons and other stakeholders, (2) adapt “infrastructure” to the specific situation in libraries by using it as a political verb, (3) capitalize on its interpretative flexibility (as libraries vary in size, style, and between different countries) without stretching it so far that it loses analytical capacity.

Overall, we hold that this theoretical promiscuity and the crossing of boundaries are productive especially in applied research, when applied with care and attention to the specificities of empirical field and research question.