Mark S. Ackerman - Böcker

International Federation for Information Processing The IFIP series publishes state-of-the-art results in the sciences and technologies of information and communication. The scope of the series includes: foundations of computer science; software theory and practice; education; computer applications in technology; communication systems; systems modeling and optimization; information systems; computers and society; computer systems technology; security and protection in information processing systems; artificial intelligence; and human-computer interaction. Proceedings and post-proceedings of refereed international conferences in computer science and interdisciplinary fields are featured. These results often precede journal publication and represent the most current research. The principal aim of the IFIP series is to encourage education and the dissemination and exchange of information about all aspects of computing. For more information about the 300 other books in the IFIP series, please visit www.springer.com. For more information about IFIP, please visit www.ifip.org.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Knowledge Management in Action 2008 Conference, held in Italy on September 7-10, 2008. The IFIP series publishes state-of-the-art results in the sciences and technologies of information and communication. The scope of the series includes: foundations of computer science; software theory and practice; education; computer applications in technology; communication systems; systems modeling and optimization; information systems; computers and society; computer systems technology; security and protection in information processing systems; artificial intelligence; and human-computer interaction. Proceedings and post-proceedings of refereed international conferences in computer science and interdisciplinary fields are featured. These results often precede journal publication and represent the most current research. The principal aim of the IFIP series is to encourage education and the dissemination and exchange of information about all aspects of computing.

A topic of significant interest to the CSCW, IT and IS communities is the issue of how software and other technical systems come to be adopted and used. We know from considerable research that people use systems in many ways, and that the process of incorporating them in their everyday activities can require a great deal of effort. One way of understanding adoption and use is by considering artifacts as resources in people's environments."Resources, Co-Evolution and Artifacts: Theory in CSCW" looks at how resources get created, adopted, modified, and die, by using a number of theoretical and empirical studies to carefully examine and chart resources over time. It examines issues such as: how resources are tailored or otherwise changed as the situations and purposes for which they are used change; how a resource is maintained and reused within an organisation; the ways in which the value of a resource comes to be recognised and portrayed; the ways in which an artifact is transformed to enable it to function more effectively as a resource; the ways in which an artifact's usage practices evolve as it becomes recognized as a resource; how one might approach the problem of designing a resource de novo; the ways in which opportunistic use of an artifact transforms it into a new kind of resource.