Discussion of method

This section will discuss the extent to which this dissertation represents a successful ethnography. The author’s own interpretations of how well ethnographic methods were used will inform the conclusion as to the value of this study. For convenience, it will be divided into sections although, as has already been argued, this presents an artificially linear view of the ethnographic process. Firstly, the success of the field work stage will be discussed, and then an examination of any issues raised by the write of stage will follow.

6.1 The field work

Although the field work stage was conducted over only three full days, enormous quantities of notes were produced. As the author’s time doing observations progressed, so he produced more and more copious notes. This is perhaps because the purpose of the notes was refined meaning that the author was able to be more lucid and lengthy in response to observations and perhaps because it became clearer what sort of things needed to be noted down. Although more than adequate quantities of data were collected during the time allowed for observation, it is clear that if the ethnography had more clearly adhered to the guidance in the literature (for example, Goffman, 1989: 130) and had been conducted over a much longer period of time, then many more ‘layers of significance’ (Geertz, 1973) would have become apparent and relevant.

Time also constrained this study in that the author was initially concerned to complete the observation stage of the research before the summer semester ended, enabling an examination of the IC staff at their most busy. In retrospect, this may not have been entirely necessary because the ‘actual’ working life of the IC staff would have been just as visible during the vacation period. In addition, more time to prepare for the observation would have enabled a wider reading of ethnographic methods and the author may have become a more proficient ethnographer.

Another problem that could perhaps be explained by the time constraints under which this study was conducted, but which is also mentioned by Emerson et al as a common problem for ethnographers (Emerson et al, 2001: 356), is that the author was conscious of seeking things out to note down. This self-conscious searching for important or noteworthy occurrences may have produced an account that orients events too closely around the author’s presence, and to some extent, may have removed the account from what actually occurred. The balance between giving primacy to the author’s interpretations, and avoiding “anticipating” or exaggerating events and significances (Geertz, 1973: 26) was hard to maintain and, indeed, this distinction proved hard to draw. A more practiced ethnographer, or one more thoroughly versed in ethnographic principles, may not have found this key competency so hard to master.

One of the author’s central concerns was making sure that participants were not made to feel awkward, insecure or embarrassed by the observations of them. This was for ethical reasons, in that none of the participants were to be harmed or disturbed, and for epistemic reasons in that the participants had to be observed at their most natural. In some circumstances, the participants were not particularly disturbed by the author’s presence and would not appear to be conscious of being under observation (especially at busy times). However, at quieter times, or when certain people were being observed, they would act in a way which suggested they were very conscious of the author’s presence. In fact, nobody was made particularly uncomfortable or was adversely affected by the study, but some people did comment on being observed. One Library person joked: “so, you’re here to see me in action”, and rolled her sleeves up, ironically expressing a great challenge being met full on. Another person kept asking me what I was writing down as I took brief notes, which made me feel fairly awkward because I was not sure quite how to respond. Goffman mentions situations such as this and recommends taking “off-phases” notes, so that they do not correspond to anything that has just gone on, and also having a non-committal response to questions like this that soothes participants into their natural state again (Goffman, 1989: 130). When I told one person with whom I was working on the counter about my study she started recommending other people in the library who I could interview, which was only a problem in so far as it distracted her from her work, and thus diluted the subject of the observations.

Thus, the field work did suffer because of the unnecessary constraint of doing it so early in the research period, because the author was inexperienced at judging the degree to his own interpretations should be emphasised, and because the author’s presence occasionally affected the participants. However, no one was harmed from an ethical perspective, and plenty of valuable data was collected which formed a rich and productive basis for the rest of this dissertation.

6.2 The write-up

Geertz states that the process of ethnography can be summed up as “an elaborate venture in…‘thick description’” (Geertz, 1973: 6). The extent to which the write-up sections of this dissertation successfully achieve this will be discussed below.

Central to some ethnographic write-ups is the “magic moment” when the ethnographer crosses the “metaphysical shadow line” and is accepted into the group being studied, or suddenly realises something that allows for the interpretation of great swathes of action that had not been previously understood (see Geertz, 1973a: 413). These moments were lacking in this dissertation because of the author’s already close association with the subjects of the study. As a member of the IC staff already, the moment of acceptance into this group could not be recorded in this dissertation. Neither could many moments of sudden realisation as to the significance of certain actions, because the author was already accustomed to most of the library related action. However, that some of these moments regarding CiCS’ rituals were recorded, indicates a problem in trying to ethnographically compare two groups when the author is very familiar with one and not the other. For example, the jokes that the CiCS people make amongst themselves were highlighted, and interpretive explanations for them were offered. However, no Library jokes were commented on, suggesting that perhaps the author did not find them note-worthy, rather than that they were non-existent.

When compared to famous work-place ethnographies such as Kunda’s Engineering Culture (1992), the Findings section of this dissertation is quite scant and appears lacking in ‘thick description’. The narrative arc of entering and then touring the building and organisation, which Kunda uses to draw the reader into the observations which form the basis of his theses (Kunda, 1992: Ch 2) is lacking from this account. However, the Findings section does replicate this in some sense by taking the reader through the historical development of the Information Commons, and then the physical building, before discussing observations of the staff at the counter and finally in the staff areas. Thus, some readers may be “pulled into the [IC staff’s] work lives” by the Findings section of this dissertation, just as Bechky claims Orr’s Talking About Machines has the power to pull readers into the working lives of photocopier technicians (Bechky, 2006: 1759).

One factor that could explain the apparent lack of thick description in the Findings section of this dissertation is that the write-up had to be separated over three separate sections. The Theoretical Literature and Discussion of Findings sections are as much a part of the write-up as the Findings section. It is in all of these sections that the author’s interpretation of what was witnessed whilst performing the field work is extended and widened to include analysis of how the observations fit with what other commentators have said. To argue that the Findings section lacks the perception of layers of significance that is essential for any thick description is to ignore the holistic structure of ethnographic research, and to give too much significance to the constraints of the prescribed structure of this dissertation. The layers of significance present in the Findings section are discussed more deeply and are given more meaning and relevance in the Discussion of Findings section, which in turn relies completely upon the context that is set up in the Theoretical Literature.

However, the way that theory is used in this dissertation is, to some extent, ‘cooked’ . In an ethnography conducted over an appropriate time scale by an experienced ethnographer, theory would be used concurrently with the observations to ‘thicken’ the ethnographer’s interpretations, and indeed Okely comments that “years of comparative reading” may have gone into the preparation for the field work stage of an ethnography (Okely, 1994: 19). In this ethnography, the reading of theory occurred largely after the field work had been conducted, thus enabling the author to ‘cook’ the use of theories, and focus on areas of literature that it became clear after the observation would be relevant. Then having selected some areas of literature that seemed pertinent, the author was able to exclude other areas that presented themselves as the research progressed and as the author’s interpretations ‘thickened’. One theoretical area that was not used concerned ‘Boundary Objects’, an area of research which seeks to describe items used to aid the “interactions between participants of heterogeneous groups” (Star, 1989: 46). This research has been applied to such diverse areas as natural history museums (Star and Griesemer, 1989) and product development (Carlile, 2002), so applying it to an academic library would not have been incoherent. But for pragmatic reasons of space, this research could not be included. Abbott’s theory of professions and the theories of expertise were selected as the theoretic lenses in this study because these are areas that could be shown to be related at a fairly fundamental level to each other, and which appeared to have quite deep relevance to the subject of study in this dissertation.

In summary, the potential flaws in the write-up of this ethnographic study reflect the compromises that are inherent in writing a dissertation. Thus, the separation of the Findings, Literature Review and the Discussion sections resulted in a breakdown of the holism that is essential to ethnographies and went some way to weakening the thickness of the description and interpretation included in any of these sections. In addition the time and space constraints meant that a truly thorough analysis and interpretation of groups in the IC was impossible. And yet, some insightful and interesting observations were recorded, and some important conclusions which go beyond those mentioned in the boarder literature were drawn from the author’s interpretation of a novel situation, meaning that this ethnography did “plunge more deeply” into areas other commentators have merely sketched, making it functionally successful according to Geertz (1973: 25).