Using Ethnographic Methods in the Library
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A workshop for academic librarians on using qualitative methods for user assessment and research in the library. Part 2 focuses on exploring the range of ethnographic methods and framework available to researchers.
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Using Ethnographic Methods in the Library
- 1. Using Ethnographic Methods in the Library QUALITATIVE METHODS IN THE LIBRARY, PART 2 JANUARY 2017 CELIA EMMELHAINZ – ANTHROPOLOGY LIBRARIAN – UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- 3. Stages of qualitative research: Develop an anthropological question Lit review and conversations for focus Choose a method Choose a sampling strategy Collect data ethically Analyze data by coding for themes Share results and apply in your communities Isaacs (2014) “An Overview of Qualitative Research Methodology for Public Health Researchers,” p. 318-21
- 4. Methodological frameworks Phenomenology: how do humans make meaning? Ethnography: what’s going on in this setting or culture? Institutional Ethnography: how do people act in organizations? Grounded Theory: how can I build insight from data? Discourse Analysis: what do people do with language?
- 5. Methods: getting into their world
- 6. Physical / online trace ethnography Trace ethnography of the Grove City Public Library, Ohio; images by Celia Emmellhainz.
- 8. (Image from Judi Briden, “Photo Surveys,” (p. 40-47), in Foster & Gibbons 2007, Studying Students) Patron diaries (photo, audio, video, text)
- 9. (Image: Donna Lanclos, http://www.donnalanclos.com/?p=21 ) Cognitive mapping
- 10. Exercise 1: Mapping Draw a map of your day across campus or your library. (five minutes)
- 11. Focus groups
- 12. Interviews
- 13. (Image of fieldnotes: Dunne 2016, dx.doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2016.1168747; image of librarians by Celia Emmelhainz) Participant observation (fieldnotes)
- 14. 2: Surprise! Participant Observation / Recall Write several spatial or social dynamics you’ve observed in this workshop so far. (five minutes)
- 15. Oral history and narratives
- 17. Social network or relational charts
- 18. Document / ephemera analysis
- 19. Exercise 3: Methods Write one or two methods that stand out as useful for your research question. (three minutes)
- 20. Ideas for sampling Convenience: who can I get easily? Snowball sampling: unlisted or hard to reach people Homogenous: shared characteristics in depth Deviant: focus on the extremes Maximum variation: diversity of views Quota sampling: sample from a known population Theoretical sampling: select to answer questions well
- 21. Exercise 4: Sampling Write down a sampling strategy that may work for your research. (two minutes)
Editor's Notes
- 17 people
- I’ll assume selecting a site is Berkeley or collaborating with other academic libraries. Next, we’ll look at options for actually collecting data
- We’re going over the ones in red today, and analysis / sharing tomorrow.
- Def of phenom and ethnograhpy by Al-Busaidi 2008 Def of inst eth by rashid 2015 Def of grounded theory, discourse analysis from Readme by Lyn richards and Janice Morse
- Welcome, etc. BUILD ON THIS http://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/c.php?g=532147&p=3786865
- Photographs of a space and how it’s used ; impressions left by users Presence of physical materials, wear and tear on library objects Can also do online – logs, when they left a page, etc. Traces in library research – “Dent 19: Furthermore, personal artifacts and those things that are left behind can tell a story about the behavior or experience of people or groups, and can be explored using behavior trace or physical trace observation (Berg, 2009).” Dent p 20: “The idea is that garbage can tell us a lot about people’s lifestyles and behaviors. In a physical library setting, water bottles in garbage cans, reorganized furniture, and circulation records can tell us a lot about users’ habits and behaviors”
- Fully anonymous observation shouldn’t need an IRB If interacting with identifying information or conducting surveys do need IRB Opportunity is to observe commentary outside of formal interaction / self-editing Limitation is that it’s hard to follow up and get more nuance Good as a complement to other methods
- Advantage – capture things you couldn’t otherwise Get respondent’s point of view on what’s important Can interview to follow up Limitation – may be harder to get what they were thinking at the time/ retrospection Potentially well-combined with regular diaries as well
- Prompts: something unique about your division or user needs? Something you saw in interaction with other librarians, researchers, or workers? Curious beliefs or practices? Wider changes in libraries, universities, or the information economy? You don’t need to share these, so feel free to brainstorm now, and come back after this session for more! Coming back—ideally, you’d next do a quick lit search to see what others have discovered in this area, before refining your question.
- “conversation with a purpose” Benefits – get in depth perception Hutchinson ea (1994, p. 161) suggest that “catharsis, self-acknowledgement, sense of purpose, selfawareness, empowerment, healing, and providing a voice for the disenfranchised” are benefits for respondents. Image page: https://medium.com/@bettinaux/sharing-ux-insights-with-stakeholders-97f5a7387678#.zfby0bxtg Image source: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*34ZnAGRV-diXCD9OjOCw8A.jpeg
- Omohundro 81+ Participant observation Make sure you have permission to be there and take notes; it’s not already familiar; you have a trusted acquaintance who can explain and facilitate connections. Write what happened, sights and sounds, environment, interactions [study group, faculty meeting, student dorm, off-campus café, reference session, vendor meeting, campus budget meeting, etc]. How you felt and how people responded. What was told to you in private/public Jorgensen 1989, 12 – situations for participant observation: ■ Little is known about the phenomenon. ■ There are important differences between the views of insiders as opposed to outsiders. ■ The phenomenon is somehow obscured from the view of outsiders. ■ The phenomenon is hidden from public view. DeWalt and DeWalt (2002) – use PObs to get explicit behavior / ideas / practices as well as tacit (thoughts, norms, and practices that may not be a part of our conscious awareness), cited in Dent’s qual rsch in libs p. 13
- Prompts: something unique about your division or user needs? Something you saw in interaction with other librarians, researchers, or workers? Curious beliefs or practices? Wider changes in libraries, universities, or the information economy? You don’t need to share these, so feel free to brainstorm now, and come back after this session for more! Coming back—ideally, you’d next do a quick lit search to see what others have discovered in this area, before refining your question.
- Dent p. 17: Gathering and analyzing narratives about peoples’ experiences can be quite powerful. Heath 1986, 84 defines the narrative as “verbalized memories of past or ongoing experiences” Dent p 18: “Any given library may contain thousands of stories. Every user and every employee is a potential storyteller. Moreover, library artifacts such as books, computers, and desks also tell us stories about their own use, in some way” Heath 1986: 4 types of narratives: recounts, eventcasts, accounts, and stories. Recounts – experiences of the past speaker had a role Eventcast – verbal replay of activity Account – share what you experienced Story – retell structured, more lyrical story Newton Free Library Oral History image: https://fedora.digitalcommonwealth.org/fedora/objects/commonwealth:gb19g912k/datastreams/access800/content
- Ethnosemantics, the ways people use and label things (Omohundro 8.6) https://medanth.wikispaces.com/Pile+Sorting “identify the items (or themes) that exist within a cultural domain. It utilizes physical media (i.e. Cards, objects or pictures) to generate data from individuals or groups by studying how they organizes or “sorts” this information. Perceptions of social structures, compare to freelisting, variation between groups Helps us get “what the participating community values, beliefs, or views as appropriate” Good start before observation or interviews Give “a set of terms on index cards, pictures, or physical items. Next ask them to divide them into groups based on their similarities or relevance. A freelist typically can provide terms or items needed for a pile sorting exercise” Image on wood table: http://www.michiecao.com/nyplmobilelibrary/ https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52c77bc2e4b0c06fbd14fa04/t/580d93cfebbd1a2239a28e02/1477284824373/?format=750w
- Image from: http://images.slideplayer.com/1/231251/slides/slide_36.jpg, via http://keywordsuggest.org/gallery/151192.html Here you can map out formal relationships as well as informal ones (dotted line) – gives you a read of who does what in relation to whom. Genogram, genealogical charts, and maps of relationships in a village or institution are aother way to do this. CF. http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/an-introduction-to-business-v2.0/section_12/40ec337401bd472a69cfc95637a9fe12.jpg for a good image of internal/ external forml/informal communication matrix.
- Studying documents (Omohundro 5.5, 1.2-3) look at print brochures and analyze how libraries portray themselves; but could also look online and see what kind of ideas are circulating about libraries. Could code this. - Colbert image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/17/f2/be/17f2be081d3a7358cf5db65d6ee0e11a.jpg Good library image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/2b/6d/25/2b6d25b944179927c701a1e55562c71e.jpg Insane ppl: http://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/2/99/1666353424-4351-do-i-have-to-talk-to-insane-people-youre-a-librarian-now.png CUT FOLKLORE Folklore: Collecting stories (myths, rumours, jokes, anecdotes, warning tales, graffiti, Omohundro 11.4) Discourse analysis, legends, rumors, perceptions of a library Ideas that get passed along between librarians
- Give them a list!
- Not meant to represent whole population, but to interpret / explore a particular context and apply results to that or similar contexts. Isaacs (2014) “An Overview of Qualitative Research Methodology for Public Health Researchers,” 319-20 p. 319-20 Lit review – in depth Framework includes phenomenology, discourse analysis, grounded theory, ethnography, thick/qualitative description Sampling strategy is specific to questions; does not need to be random or representative of the full population. Extreme/deviant sampling, maximum variation for multiple views, homogenous to study similar situatoins in more depth. Snowball for hard to reach; convenience – least benit Sample size is not about n; it’s about saturation of new or confirming knowledge (320)
- Thank you, I look forward to your questions.