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Approaches to research

Abstract
There is an increasing emphasis on research in library and information studies. This has led to a proliferation of courses on research methods. For people starting research, as well as for teachers organising such courses, the experience has been exciting and complex. Not only has it involved the identification and development of eclectic research ideas, but it has also led to a deeper examination of the relationship between theory and practice. Critical too has been the interface between research which leads to financial reward and research conducted for purely academic reasons (and how and where the area lies in between). Political factors have also been at work, from the perceived need new entrants to the profession have of the desirability of a master’s degree, demonstrating mastery of at least fundamental researching skills, to the momentum in higher education to provide a wide range of challenging courses which purport to ensure competitive advantage for their graduates in the market-place.

The research process
Research, pure and applied, is carried out for many reasons. In the social sciences, where arguably most library and information research is based, it is in part a search for knowledge for its own sake. Examples include finding out more about what people think, how they behave (say, in information-gathering), and the extent to which information-awareness influences decision-making. More and more today, the search for knowledge has a pragmatic or utilitarian purpose, since managers and sponsors usually want to know about the implications for practice, for the organization or for society. In its study ‘Target 2000: projecting British social science’, the Association of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences have identified applications such as the study of work and organizations, political processes, rural and urban change, and human resource issues, as being appropriate targets for such applied research. Certainly, in-house research in library and information services usually has that practical focus and rationale, since research is expensive in time and intellectual energy, and must be justified in terms of effective outcomes.

Not unimportant in research is the identification and use of research methods (or, when defined more systematically, methodologies). These methods can be classified as quantitative or qualitative, and both in their various ways attempt to describe and explain the social phenomena under review. These phenomena may be user behaviours or attitudes, relationships between variables like the age and use of documents, the representativeness of sample evidence, and significant exceptions revealed through detailed investigation of costs or prices or delivery lead-times. In their turn, the choice and implementation of research methods impose intellectual and practical constraints on the researcher, not least ofwhich is the extent to which the validity of the method can be explained. Research, then, is a process set within a complex theoretical and political hinterland, which needs to be carried out systematically, explained clearly, and evaluated convincingly.

The research process itself is often represented as a series of stages or steps. Starting research is where the need oropportunity for research is identified and where research ideas or questions begin to emerge and gradually become crystallized. The characteris-tic next step is a review of the literature, to determine what has been written and done already on the subject, and what findings already exist. It may be that the research ideas or questions emerge out of the review. They often arise from a variety of sources - literature, immediate or prospective problems in the workplace, a perceived need for evidence to support a management decision, research a sponsor wants carried out, a consultancy. After the literature review comes specifying the research problem, which in-volves representing what you want to know in words and in the form of a viable series of tasks. Then comes the study itself, followed by a review of the implications and outcomes, with possible recom-mendations. Implicit in the rationale throughout is why the study was conducted in the way that it was, and what it contributes (to known knowledge or to solving a particular problem).

Specialized terminology is often used of the stages, such as justification of why the research question is important, empirical work for the experi-ments or surveys which form the study, analysis and critique for the systematic evaluation ofthe findings, and discussion for a review of the methods used and speculations about the inferences and implications of the research. The literature review consists not merely of what is written but also key ideas and approaches of conceptual and historiographic value in their own right, and may more correctly be called a theoretical framework. This in its turn may lead the researcher to investigate the intellectual or ideologi-cal paradigm within which the research is to be carried out (examples of such paradigms are the capitalist information market-place and the ways in which, say, economists think about economics and create and disseminate information within that sub-ject domain). More specialized still are stages of the research process where research propositions are formulated, hypotheses framed, and a formal re-search design created.

The early stages of the process often consist of considering research ideas, expressing them as state-ments, building them up into an outline, and developing the formal research design. This entails moving from questions like ‘What do I want to know?’ and ‘How can it be investigated?’ to the more systematic position of outlining exactly what is to be studied, what sources and methods used, and what outcomes are likely. Kesearch questions should be clear and precise: e.g. ‘What information sources are most used by middle managers in the oil industry?‘. Often there are difficulties of definition, as when the question asks whether a particular form of informa-tion provision has been ‘effective’, and ‘effective’ itself has to be defined further. In such cases it is essential to consider how concepts like effectiveness can be measured so that a viable and credible re-search design can evolve. The research design itself subsumes the research statements and questions, pro-vides the framework (eg theory/practice, literature review, other research), identifies claims or hypo-theses, defines methodologies and ways of gathering and analysing data, the working schedule of the research, and intended findings and contribution to the world of knowledge and/or managerial decision-making. The process, then, can be characterized as a movement towards greater understanding, defini-tion, and complexity. An important aspect of it is manageability in terms of the time, cost, resources, and researcher ability and interest.

The role of theory is always complex. Theory may provide the starting point for research; for ex-ample, a view of society or of individual behaviour may inform a piece of research on the provision of information products and services to particular user groups. Theories have been called intellectual sys-tems looking for empirical reference, that is to say, eligible to research which tests whether their claims have any basis in reality. Examples include theories about the way people learn and the provision of training or information skills, and about the ways in which scientific knowledge develops and the ways in which this is reflected in the literature. At times, theory expresses itself in the form of models, like models of information exchange and flow, which may then be used as important formulations of the ways variables interact and as the basis for practical research into particular situations. Theory may be imported from one discipline into another (e.g. the value-chains of competitive advantage marketing into an examination of ‘the intelligent organization’, or cash-flow models into a study of budgeting prac-tice in a large library). It may be an abstraction in search of proof, such as a view of human motivation or adaptation to change.

The research proposal
Two important trends in library and information research have been the need to communicate the research plan clearly and persuasively, and the inten-tion to attract financial support.

Even when students in universities are engaged in putting together statements and outlines for course-assessed work or higher degrees, it is critical to learn the skill ofcommunicating the content and approach of the research in a convincing and attractive way. Skills learned early on may, through continuing professional development, grow into mature research, development, and consultancy skiils. The vehicle for communicating the claims and scope of intended research is the research proposal.

This may be concise or extended, but whatever else it does it should provide a clear idea of the research problem (i.e. the goal of the project). This may indeed be a problem (like finding ways of building quality into information provision), or an issue (like the implications of income-generation or affirmative action), or a critical focus (like current library practice in summarizing and displaying management information in regular reports). It is often difficult to identify what the importance of the pro-posed study is without special pleading. Such claims always need to be made knowing current and retro-spective literature on the subject, and demonstrating familiarity with available and appropriate research methods. A major role for the proposal is to make clear what methods will be used and how: the suitability of the methods, and the ways in which they are implemented, will critically affect the outcomes and cogency of the research. For instance, surveys are useful for behavioural research like user studies, and may involve deliberate use of questionnaires, samples, and statistical analysis. On the other hand, more humanistic research may entail extended un-structured interviews with junior managers where selection of respondents, interpretation of data, and generalizability will be very different.

Since the proposal is a distillation of the putatively completed research project or programme, it is, paradoxically enough, both an indication of what will be and what will have been. This means that an effective proposal has succeeded, in advance ofcom-pleting the actual research, in demonstrating a convincingly thorough appreciation ofthe problems, constraints, opportunities, and outcomes of the re-search. Not only is a good research proposal able to project ahead in this way: it is also able to show a strongly self-critical and reflective emphasis. This factor reveals itself in many ways, from the extent to which validity and reliability are built into the design to the ways in which the researcher is able to argue objectively that the research has overcome practical problems and has made realistic and tenable compro-mises over its limitations.

In addition, the research proposal should give a clear indication of how the data or findings will be interpreted or analysed. Data may be numerical, like statistics or castings, or textual, like statements re-corded on tape in interviews. In both cases, however, it is essential to indicate how and why the data have been evaluated, and the relationship of the findings (say, particular causal relationships between vari-ables, particular patterns in the qualitative information) with the original claims of the research. The original claims may find corroboration from the findings, or may undergo qualification as a result of them.

The proposal should point, however tentatively, towards the expected results or, more generally, the likely impact of the research. There is therefore a clear link between the aims and outcomes of the projected research, and a satisfactory coherence in the proposal documentation.

Often underplayed in research proposals are im-portant practical elements like resources, staff, budget, and agenda. Resources, simply, are what the institu-tion can provide by way of computer facilities and libraries. The staff may be the researcher or research assistants, as well as an indication of who else (organization contacts, respondents) may be involved. Budget costs resources and staff, estimates likely expenditure on travel and equipment, and dissemina-tion of findings. Costings are particularly important when seeking sponsored research (say, from the British Library), and are often divided into catego-ries like recurrent and non-recurrent. Agenda denls with the context within which the research is planned and takes place: this is often political, with competi-tive interest groups and opportunistic collaborations. In organizational research, it is often characterized by tensions between academic and workplace re-search (in terms of expectations) and by the diplomatic and ethical dilemmas posed when conducting re-search in situations where stakeholders subscribe to different agendas. Agendas are further complicated by issues of confidentiality and anonymity, by how far research encounters are overt rather than covert, and how far research findings are massaged into acceptable PR at the end of the day.

Types of research
There are many types of research. In library and information studies applied research, as opposed to pure research, is very popular. Applied research is pragmatic and stresses the importance of gathering and analysing information which can be used in resolving real-life problems. Examples include the in-house research a library might conduct into is-sues, duplication, opening hours, efficiency of departments, and so on. There may be pure or ‘basic’ research components built into such applied research, as when theoretical models of organizational design or human behaviour are used as starting points for the investigation. The work-place emphasis and the direct application of the research to decision-making often lead people to call applied research ‘action research’.

Research may entail the examination of histori-cal evidence, financial and otherwise, with the intention of determining particular facts or trends, investigating causes and identifying important cy-cles. Such historical research’may be applied to management situations (such as policy changes in higher education and implications for library provi-sion) or to bibliographical areas and their readership and sociology (such as historiographic studies, iit-eracy and cultural research, and the development of academic communities and disciplines). It may take on a bibliometric dimension if statistical analysis is applied to the content of journals or the publication patterns of monographs, and content analysis may be incorporated in such research if citations or concepts or particular themes are investigated for the fre-quency and impact of their appearance in the literature.

One familiar distinction is that of quantitative and qualitative research, the first with its emphasis on measurement and testing and the second with its emphasis on understanding participants and factors in context. Quantitative research in the social sci-ences is often called ‘scientific’ because it often formulates research problems in the form of testable hypotheses, attempts to identify and measure rela-tionships between variables, and strives to minimise researcher interference. This research is called ‘h::pothetico-deductive’ because it uses hypotheses or formal claims and sets out to test or prove them, and uses an approach to evidence which examines how far and well observations confirm the initial ‘thesis’ or ‘claim’ or ‘law’. Jndeed, hypotheses are often regarded as propositions that lead to the pre-diction of facts under given circumstances. Researchers attempt to ensure that the circumstances are as controlled as possible, although the strict laboratory controls characteristic of chemical or en-gineering experiments are not always possible or appropriate in the social sciences.

Quantitative research often identifies and exam-ines variables. Examples of these include the frequency ofjoumal issues, prices ofchemistry mono-graphs, absenteeism ofjunior staff, and visits to the library of elderly users. Hypothetical relationships between data can be determined, e.g. the extent to which job satisfaction, however measured, reduces absenteeism among staff. Systematic methods of data collection and analysis are used, often based on statistical techniques like sampling and significance testing. Such approaches are suitable where data fall plausibly into natural and convincing categories, like usage and costing figures, and where correla-tions and causal relationships and group differences are critical to a full understanding of the phenomena concerned. Differences which emerge between ob-served and expected data present the researcher with issues of statististical significance. This should be built into the research design from the start, with appropriate tests. For example, the hypothesis that ‘there is no significant relationship between the number of reviews a book receives and the inclusion of that book in the library’ may, after appropriate data have been gathered, and statistical tests carried out, receive confirmation or not (i.e. accepting the null hypothesis or not). Testing by parametric (e.g. t or F tests) or non-parametric (e.g. chi-square) meth-ods may follow naturally. Important also in this situation are the instruments used to measure the data (e.g. survey) and the extent to which the scales and criteria used for measurement are valid (i.e. suited to the task) and reliable (i.e. replicable).

The design of this is often called ‘experimental’ because it resembles scientific experimentation. The purpose is often to test the hypotheses or educated guesses (e.g. that the use of CD-ROM in libraries increases the number of requests for inter-library loans) that have arisen within the theoretical frame-work of ideas and methodologies and from experiential knowledge of the workplace. The con-ventional design for experimental research is, most simply, to elicit responses from or identify behav-iours of participants when exposed to particular factors. Examples might include the ways users use a catalogue after instruction or a television audience think about an issue after watching a programme about it. More complex are pretest-posttest designs in which the researcher measures before and after exposure, making sure to control the susceptibility to exposure of!hcse taking part. Classicaiiy, a compari-son can be made between one group which is exposed (the ‘experimental’ group) (say, to user education) and another group which is not (the so-called ‘con-trol’ group), enabling the researcher to investigate whether the exposure does indeed have the assumed effect

Not all situations lend themselves to this research design, particularly if the variables involved are not easy to measure in this manner. There may also be factors at work in the situation which make it inap-propriate to characterize it as one where independent variables influence dependent variables (a tradition-ally effective way to test the causality ofhypotheses). Moreover, such research assumes that social facts have an objective reality rather than being socially constructed, and that variables can be objectively identified and measured rather than being complex, woven into the fabric of meanings and perceptions participants have and share, and so difficult to elicit. The research hinterland is that of a contrast between two paradigms, the hypothetical-deduc-tive paradigm, with its quantitative approach, and the holistic-inductive paradigm, described and discussed below.

Gummesson (1991) summarizes some of the major differences between these two approaches, calling them positivistic and hermeneutic. Positiv-ism stresses rules and norms by which we can explore and explain phenomena objectively, and defines valid knowledge and inquiry in scientific terms. The hermeneutic approach emphasizes understanding, perception, idiosyncrasy, and the participants’ own ways of making sense of experience, and has other names like humanistic, naturalistic, illuminative; exploratory, and qualitative. For Gummesson posi-tivism concentrates on description ahd explanation, on well-defined studies, on explicit theories and hypotheses, clear distinctions between facts and val-ues, rationality and logic, statistical techniques and detachment. The hermeneutic approach, on the other hand, works on different principles -understanding, above all understanding the social work from the point ofview ofthe actor (e.g. the middle manager in the organization), holistic studies, a recognition that there is no black-and-white distinction between facts and values, non-quantitative data, and acceptance of researcher involvement and perception.

Often in social science research there are mixed modes, drawing on both traditions. For instance, it would be wrong to say that objectivity is not impor-tant for qualitative research, and that empirical ‘facts’ are not essential fo; a successful analysis of a man-agement situation, but at the same time frequently social science research, say into organizations, takes account ofthe subjective constructions of the partici-pants (e.g. the meanings they give to the phenomena they might define in an interview or a questionnaire), as well as of the political or ideological dimensions of any interpretation of human behaviour (e.g. with referenlc to capitalism or feminism). Often, survey work entails such mixed approaches, as samples are identified and investigated with attention to statisti-cal representativeness, but evidence (say in the form of extended text from open questions or follow-up interviews) is analysed thematically in ways inap-propriate for significance testing, and interpreted with an emphasis on the private constructions par-ticipants place on meanings.

Qualitative research
Qualitative research stresses ‘understanding’, em-phasizes context, sees the social world from the point of view of the actor, human behaviour from the actor’s own frame of reference. As Bogdan and Taylor (1975) say, the positivistic approach empha-sizes facts or causes of social phenomena rather than subjective states of the individual. Mellon (1990) calls this type of research ‘naturalistic’, an in-depth study of people and situations and events, challeng-ing researchers to establish rapport with the situation, maintaining objectivity with alienating informants, and perceiving theory from a welter of fascinating and conflicting information. She states that natural-istic studies focus on viewing experiences from the perspective of those involved - librarians, informa-tion professionals, information users. The roots of this approach lie in ethnography (the study ofhuman behaviour in society) and anthropology. Research into information is ethnographic, for instance, if it examines the ways in which individual users search for information, or the extent to which they find it meaningful and relevant to their situation, or how they represent their information-gathering or their valuation of relevance.

Such naturalistic or qualitative research is con-ducted in ways rather different from those which characterize the experimental or quantitative approach. Often research starts small and moves to and fro as the researcher defines and redefines the area and problem to be considered. Expectations and assumptions may have to be reviewed and removed. Rather than a hypothesis as starting point, such re-search often involves familiarization with the people and situation. This is what Bourdieu termed the ‘habitus’, the social setting of the actor, his or her way of talking and doing, the inside-head meanings and representations in language. It is ‘a shared body of dispositions, classifications and schemes, not just cumulative history but the source of objective prac-tices and their subjective generative principles (eg how we explain things)’ (Jenkins, 1992). The habitus is most fully understood within its ‘field’, that struc-tured system of social positions, for individuals and institutions, which defines the situation for their occupants. Fields include education, class, political structures, gender, and organizational cultures. They draw on the systematic knowledge and belief struc-tures which are usually called paradigms and ideologies, and form critically important aspects of the context within which qualitative research is car-ried out.

The methods used in such research include documentary study, interviews, and participant observation. These are ways of eliciting information at first hand and in-depth from respondents or in-formants. Documentary study or the analysis of personal documents (e.g. letters) can be quantitative (e.g. the content analysis of newspapers) but often takes account of the ideological assumptions in the documents (e.g. assumptions about deviancy in ofli-cial papers or about the decision-making process in committee minutes). Effective analysis requires of the researcher a fine conceptual grasp of problems, an ability to make one’s own interpretations in the context of the many already there, and an awareness of the assumptions being made.

Interviews are widely used to elicit not only information about respondents but also what they think of an issue or situation. They are useful mecha-nisms for probing not just behaviour and experience but also opinions, values, beliefs, and feelings. Positivistic approaches can be used in interviewing, as when facts about the world are being sought or when variables are being developed and clothed with evidence. A major decision is how far to structure interviews (e.g. by schedules), particularly if this predetermines the outcomes. Yet interviews also provide a wealth of ethnographic information: what respondents think about the facts, how they put their ideas and feelings into words, how they present themselves to the researcher during the interview. With participant observation the researcher becomes involved in the lives (e.g. workplace, home lives) of the respondents (e.g. visiting an information service to observe staff or users), anapproach which has the advantage of close-hand experience and the disad-vantage of influencing what goes on. For instance, observation of staff, particularly if unobtrusive (i.e. they do not know you are there or who you are), can lead to shyness or suspicion or fears about confiden-tiality. The very issues where probing in-depth has greatest potential, e.g. into job satisfaction at work, are in times of recession, performance and appraisal, most sensitive to investigate. It is sometimes hard to convince respondents that the research is uncon-nected with any formal evaluation from line management.

After defining qualitative research and briefly describing its major methods, the ways in which the information or data are analysed is distinctive Re-searchers often find themselves overwhelmed by information and so there is a need to impose order. Transcripts from field notes or interviews (especially tape-recorded interviews) can be extensive. A char-acteristic approach is to identify important and recurring themes (say, activities concerned with user service, expressed attitudes about low morale, focal areas of human interaction like team dynamics, be-I’cfs about the organizational culture). Themes should be organized into coherent and linked structures so that they hold together in relation to the world of knowledge and practice they are intended to illumi-nate and have a convincing mutual relevance.

Frequently the evidence is then arranged into patterns-say, views expressed by information users about aspects of the service, behaviours revealed in response to particular management styles, the effects of training provision on staff self-esteem, situations consensually identified as stressors or pressure points, evidence of where people agree or disagree about norms. It may be important to accommodate into this scheme divergent and contradictory evidence. There are times when, in interviews, the respondent says one thing but conveys an opposite meaning through tone or body language. Many researchers devise a coding system so that particular themes or reactions can be consistently recorded and flagged and brought together more reliably and speedily during the data analysis stage. Such a system may pick up ideas or concepts, beliefs or reactions, tone or unconscious gesture. Inter-relationships between themes, patterns, and coded categories should evolve, building up an understanding of the situation. It is this understand-ing of the situation which the researcher hopes to communicate to the reader of the research at the end of the day.

The emphasis on getting to know both the actors and the context, both the facts and the values of a situation, has led people to call this kind of research ‘holistic’. It is also called ‘inductive’. At its simplest, this means that one proceeds from example to gener-alization (rather than the other way round which is deduction). In naturalistic research, it is a familiar approach to start with an idea of the research prob-lem, perhaps a rough model of interrelationships between factors (say, between capitalism and the deregulated information marketplace, or between the availability of electronic information and the kinds of topics writers in an academic discipline most often write about), build up evidence of this problem or model, deconstmct and redefine the model, clarify the issues, excise some research avenues and introduce others. The process is often recursive, as the growing body of evidence (i.e. exemplary mate-rial) provides increasing insight into the nature of the problem and the exact manner in which it asks to be researched. Considerable self-discipline is needed to keep the original research claims in view, particu-larly when evidence builds up, subject boundaries get blurred, and the plausibility of the original model gets thrown into doubt. Even when the inductive process moves along smoothly, it is rare in the social sciences that one is seeking to confirm a ‘law’ in the scientific sense.

This inductive process is, in effect, theory gen-eration. Ideas and themes and patterns are after all identified and organized so that a broader, over-arching theoretical proposition can be suggested. This may be macro, in the sense that it applies to society or a professional or subject domain as a whole, or micro, in that it refers mainly to one organization or type of organization or situation. One of the challenges with qualitative research is the extent to which one can generalize from it. By its nature it captures the idiosyncratic and richly tex-tured nature of particular situations or respondent group (most typically in case study research), mak-ing it difficult to generalize from and replicate. It is for this reason that qualitative researchers have found terms other than generalizability: ‘fittingness’ is one, conveying the degree to which the situation studied matches other situations in which researchers might be interested, and offers a realistic and feasible ap-proach to research in that domain. More detailed is the idea of ‘comparability’ or ‘translatability’, which focuses on the extent to which components of a research study (like the concepts, recurring features of the setting, or dominant characteristics of re-spondents) can be regarded as well and fully enough defined and discussed to enable other researchers to use the results, or extrapolate from them, in further studies carried out in comparable ways and areas.

Another issue of importance with qualitative or naturalistic research lies in the area of facts and values. The assumption that facts are truly objective is often difficult to prove in the social sciences where facts are expressed in language which itself is so-cially constructed and value-laden. Much of the discourse of professional life is impregnated with connotations indicative of these values. Discussion ofa marketing approach to library service or ‘service values’ in a fee-based information economy reveals widespread use of these connotations. Analysts of communication and media language refer to gender and class and politics as fertile a’renas for ideological meanings. In qualitative research, therefore, which places emphasis on the meanings which respondents give to the information they provide to researchers, it is important to take these factors on board. Resear-chers can identify such assumptive meanings in the documentary evidence they examine, and in inter-view and interpersonal discourse in the workplace.

Associated with the issue of facts and values is that of ‘conscious partiality’. Working from the posi-tion that research may not be value-free, and that the evidence obtained may bc ideologically biassed and compatible with a context in which social conflict is normal and where respondents are likely to reveal (knowingly or not) a ‘false consciousness’, con-sciously partial research will actively adopt a position of advocacy. Typical of such research is some of the work in feminism and environmental studies. It can be seen in library and information studies in research on human resource management, gender and the ‘glass ceilink’ effect on female employees, and in research on environmental and community informa-tion where advocacy and advice, politically informed and otherwise, may be considered appropriate. More broadly, it is useful for researchers to consider the broader historical, sociological, and political approa-ches to information provision, when investigating subjects like concentration in the communication industry and the extent to which hegemonistic elites, nationally and internationally, may arguably exer-cise excessive influence.

Research toolboxes
Research experience is usually acquired in piece-meal ways, say by taking part in survey or observation work, or conducting a documentary study as part of a discipline-based degree. Increasing attention is being given to the range of techniques available for both academic and practitioner-based research. Rea-sons for this range from the proliferation of research methods courses in higher education to the increased pressure to be seen to be managing at quality levels in library and information services. Consultancy and the infrastructure of funded research have also ac-quired a higher profile in recent years.

In consequence it is useful regularly to review what research techniques are available, and examine the literature -articles, theses, reports - to see what is being carried out. Particular fields, like manage-ment information and decision support systems, and performance measurement, are typical. Some tech-niques are more appropriate to one task than another; for example, sampling and significance testing for user studies, pricing theory for budgeting, opera-tional research like queuing and transportation for collection management and distribution, and model-ling for international and comparative studies of information policy. Introductions to applications are becoming more popular on training courses where advantages can be seen. Software packages which enable statistical display, analysis and forecasting are increasingly available to help the researcher.

Choosing from among research techniques is important. It is useful to define the problem, consider the approach, and identify the appropriate research technique. For instance, if the research is intended to find out how people behave in public, watching them is the approach and observation the technique. To find out what people think, asking them is the ap-proach, and techniques include interviews and questionnaires (especially if the questionnaires have attitude-scaled questions). To discover trends in tex-tual material, the approach may well be systematic tabulation, and the technique content analysis, ap-propriate for bibliometric and citation studies. For understanding a situation with unique and complex features, the approach is a detailed and holistic in-vestigation and the technique the case study. Some techniques may be identified as appropriate at face value, like using diaries to investigate how informa-tion personnel behave in private (e.g. their daily/weekly work patterns), but may present associated difficulties such as cooperation, confidentiality, and trust.

Research in the information domain has often been characterized by surveys/questionnaires and interviews. Statistical analysis has tended to be used in areas like information analysis and user studies. Case studies are popular for examining information services in detail. However, it is useful to consider how much wider the range of research techniques actually is, and familiarize oneself with applications in other social sciences which nevertheless have realistic application in the information domain. One of these lies in the ethnographic area with the use of diaries, autobiographies or life histories, and role playing, where much tacit or implicit information can bc elicited about respondents’ views about or-ganizational behaviour and change. Another is that of attitudes and personal constructs, through the use of repertory grids and associated techniques. More quantitative are statistical sampling and significance testing in the analysis of information services, re-gression in financial control, and modelling in service provision. From marketing and media, there are fo-cus groups and panel studies. From management ‘inside the whale’ studies of the effects of organiza-tional culture and change.

Research - design, methodology, testing instru-ments, data analysis - should have validity and reliability. On the most general level this has close bearings on how objectively or subjectively the re-search has been designed and carried out. In more detail, validity exists if the research technique tests what the researcher wanted it to test, if it was really suitable. It should define the relationships between variables and enable the investigation to hold up and be regarded as robust and true by other researchers. The validity of the technique depends on how well it measures the specific factors of the research area (eg forms of semantic differential or Likert scales for attitude research, or types of content analysis for the coverage ofnews items in the media). Expert opinion and predictive strength are also characteristics of validity.

Reliability, on the other hand, is the extent to which the technique accurately and consistently meas-ures whatever it measures. It should demonstrate stability over time, not easy when, in qualitative research, control is difficult to ensure. Reliability will also depend on internal consistency, i.e. the extent to which the critical factors or ideas or constructs hold together under examination by the technique. Reliability is often defined as ‘replicability’, so that, were the researcher to reiter-ate the research, or were it to be conducted at some other time or place, the findings, though not the same, would demonstrate an intellectually coherent comparability, even if rival findings emerged. Both validity and reliability have more rigid connotations in experimental research, since they apply to hypo-thetico- deductive and law-based models. It is useful to distinguish between positivistic and qualitative validity: the first asks whether the testing instrument i::casures what it is supposed to measure, while the second asks whether the researcher has gained ad-equate access to the knowledge and meanings of the respondents. Similarly for reliability where the positivistic approach is to ask whether the measure will throw up the same results on different occasions and the qualitative approach is to consider whether similar observations will be made by different re-searchers on different occasions. Often, of course, mixed methods are employed, say for data collec-tion, a hybrid approach called triangulation when it allows the researcher to use one technique to check or confirm another.

Conclusion
The range of research applications in information and library work today has widened and deepened general awareness ofthe need for systematic research education and training. In academic and practitioner-based environments, there is a professional and personal incentive to carry out research, to be seen to have mastered fundamental research skills, and to be carrying out research to give status and points ratings to library, information service, or academic department. Competition between in-house and con-sultancy- sourced research is often critical, as prior experience and track record are scrutinized for evidence of proven research.

There is also increased emphasis on resources to underwrite appropriate research ventures, on the rationales and design options for research, the tech-niques available, the theoretical and paradigmatic frameworks within which research is conducted, and the political and diplomatic context which encour-ages research to take place. To that end, familiarity with a wide range of research guides and practical advice is essential for professional and personal de-velopment, for both intellectual and political reasons. Without this starting point, the research itself will never get done.

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