Cultural and technical networks: a qualitative approach

This paper presents results from research into the uses and usefulness of electronic bibliographic databases in academic contexts, using ethnographic and focus group techniques. This research looks at the processes of sense-making (and the breakdown of such attempts) in the ethnographic context of particular academic departments. The ethnographic and focus group data was gathered from students and staff of three faculties at three universities, addressing relations between cultural and technical networks in knowledge production and information management. 1. The BLERBS project The aim of the British Library Ethnographic Research into Bibliographic Services (BLERBS) project was to evaluate the use and non-use of electronic bibliographic services within academic contexts. The initial focus of interest was BIDS (Bath Infor­ mation and Data Services), but the research was widened to include the diversity of online and networked CD-ROM services. The team, made up of an anthropologist, a librarian and an ethnographically-oriented sociologist, set out to use ethnographic surveying methods to study the use/non-use of bibliographic sources, and conversa­ tion analytic approaches to the analysis of human-computer interaction. This paper brings together the range of themes which emerged from the ethno­ graphic dimensions of the research (which itself draws on and reflects upon ethnomethodological theory and research).