Stewardship and access as a social good: an information practice approach

Purpose Stewardship at cultural heritage institutions anchors public trust, yet archivists’ perspectives behind the scenes are little known. This paper explores archivists’ vantage points on stewardship and user orientation as a social good at six history of medicine collections in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative methods and naturalistic inquiry adhered to the interpretivist paradigm and relied on inductive reasoning and constructivist grounded theory. A theoretical framework fitted with concepts from information practice, information work and communities of practice research guided empirical data analysis and interpretation. Research design was emergent. Data collection bracketed six months before and after COVID-19 pandemic onset in March 2020. Findings Through an information practice lens, participants aligned stewardship with information practices embedded at the physical sites. Work contexts included institutional sites, biography and work roles, workplace documents and work task performance. Participants’ autonomy enabled streamlining internal stewardship tasks and reference services, bypassing user studies. During the pandemic, participants’ hybrid stewardship raised the import and visibility of user orientation in stewardship as a social good. However, participants’ work was constrained by users’ indirect access to repository webpages on institutional website gateways. Originality/value The paper is among the first to bridge information practice research and cultural heritage stewardship. Foregrounding archivists’ agency contributes to theory development in information behavior research in library and information science (LIS).