American Libraries and the Internet: The Social Construction of W ...

An interpretive approach can help researchers to understand how members of a social group, through their participation in social processes, enact their particular realities and endow them with meaning, and to show how these meanings, beliefs, and intentions of the members help to constitute their social action (Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991, p. 13).

An interpretive approach to studying information technology is related to more fundamental work in the sociology of knowledge. The social construction of technology (SCOT), a theoretical framework derived from the sociology of scientific knowledge, has been selected for the study (Bijker, 1995). Through key concepts such as interpretive flexibility, relevant social groups, technological frames, and closure/stabilization, the SCOT model shows that technology has multiple interpretations as seen through the eyes of different relevant social groups; these interpretations constitute the technology under study. The technology becomes stabilized when its interpretive flexibility decreases. Previous studies on the Web indicate that the Web has interpretive flexibility (e.g., Bruce, 1999; Palmquist, 1996, 2001; Stefik, 1996). This flexibility or ambiguity can be an important starting point for making the Web meaningful and sensible for those involved and for the understanding of the adaptation/appropriation process. The SCOT model thus offers a way of understanding different voices and concerns involved in Web appropriation and use in libraries and how these various voices influence and shape Web use in libraries. Through the examination of Web use in American libraries, this study also contributes to the theoretical development of the SCOT model.