This keynote concerns social aspects of information seeking and use in professional life and how these are made explicit in information practices. In particular, the keynote focuses on how professionals’ activities in relation to information artefacts, as well as the artefacts in themselves, are socially constructed in context-bound practices. Arguments in favour of an interest in peoples’ information practices rather than in their information seeking and use seen as a cognitive phenomenon are put forward. The LIS concept of cognitive authority is used in relation to the epistemological position of pragmatism. Examples are taken primarily from the author’s empirical research on nurses. The presentation concludes with a call for an increased interest in the materiality of information seeking and use by proposing important research questions for the future.