Feature article Research interviews

Stuart Hannabuss

Many people turning to research identify the interview as a suitable method for gathering information. It has its natural basis in human conversation and allows the researcher to adjust the pace and style of asking questions so as to bring out the best in the respondents. It may be a very convenient way of gathering the information and opinions of people in the organization we work for, or customers or users, or people we know in other organizations. It has the advantage, too, of providing responses in the form in which respondents think and use language, and this can be important if we are examining how respondents look at the social world which we have chosen to examine. So it is no surprise that interviews are widely used in research.

The author Stuart Hannabuss is a Lecturer in the School of Information and Media, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. Abstract Notes that research interviews form a popular option for practitioner and student research, as they have distinct advantages in eliciting unique information and opinion about the research setting. Points out that it is easy to underestimate the challenges of research interviews getting reliable responses, organizing and presenting the ndings, and guarding against subjective involvement by the researcher. Aims to open up these issues and provide guidance to current reading.

Qualitative research context

Research interviews are one example of qualitative research methods, others being questionnaires and observation. Qualitative research is very popular in the social sciences, and emphasizes seeing the social world from the viewpoint of the actor. Actors are the people working in organizations, doing particular jobs, and so on who form the respondents or informants, and what they say and do (and what they say they do and think about what they do) is an important element of qualitative research. In this way, it differs from the experimental approaches we associate with scientic or quantitative research, even though there is no clear dividing line. Qualitative research stresses understanding, the ways in which, say, managers make sense of and create meanings when they manage teams in organizations, and how this understanding can be revealed through research. Often this entails bringing the understanding out into the open, for instance through interviews, transcriptions of which exteriorize what has arguably been up to then tacit, hidden away, or merely inferable from actors actions. Such understandings may include perceptions, connotations to meanings, implicit consensus and intentionalities. Many liken qualitative research to anthropology, learning the natives point of view as well as what they do, how they live and interact, and what structures they set up. In social science research, the term ethnography is widely used to mean that part of anthropology which concerns itself with learning about a 22

New Library World Volume 97 Number 1129 1996 pp. 2230 MCB University Press ISSN 0307-4803

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culture from the inside out. A famous example in management was the Hawthorne experiment in US companies in the 1920s to 1930s, where it was found that employees changed their patterns of productivity once they knew that they were being researched. Many examples since then exist of researchers examining organizations to elicit general and individual understandings of the workplace, and they have increased with the attention paid to the importance of organizational cultures in recent years. Issues such as dysfunctionality, employee motivation, social negotiations, and the representation of the experience of change have all lent themselves to ethnographic research. Other terms are sometimes used, like phenomenology, when there is a strong emphasis on the subjectivity of the reality constructed by the respondents, and the researcher is keen to know more about it. Helen Schwartzman[1], in her book Ethnography in Organizations, describes the process as getting as close as possible to the world of managers and interpreting this world and its problems from the inside, as they are seen and felt at various points and levels. It has been compared with being in the whale, when the researcher enters a research setting (say, an organization) and gets close to the people there. The researcher may be a member of the organization in his/her own right, presenting easier access but at the same time presenting challenges of objectivity and role. It is within this qualitative and ethnographic context, then, that many researchers turn to the research interview. Although the theoretical background can seem rather abstract, it is useful to think it through so that the researcher is clear about his/her approach and the research assumptions it entails. Such prior thought is also likely to include wide and thoughtful reading in the extensive literature on qualitative research, its many techniques and applications.

Choice of research interviews

The purpose of interviewing has been dened by Patton[2] as being to nd out what is on someones mind. We interview people to nd out from them those things we cannot directly observe. Many people setting out on research have an increasingly clear idea of what the key research questions are (e.g. whether junior staff are demotivated by 23

working conditions and perceptions of inequity over pay, whether library users demonstrate high expectations about the availability of documents). It is good to consider the research methodology very early in the process, partly because it may be an essential part of the feasibility of the project, and partly because it will reect on the type of evidence gathered and the kind of reality it is intended to represent. (The last factor is usually discussed using the terms validity and reliability, although in qualitative research terms like generalizability and falsiability are very useful too.) The selection of the research methodology is not always as obvious as it looks, and is often inuenced by time and cost and the researchers own knowledge of research techniques. That said, interviews often emerge as very popular, on their own and linked with other techniques like questionnaires. We want the respondents own perspective to emerge, explore the ways in which people working together share common understandings, get insight into particular experiences, nd out motives behind decisions, get a view of informal procedures, consider apparent contradictions between attitudes and behaviour, and allow respondents time to provide their answers. Interviews seem to answer these challenges well, and many researchers believe that they can build on their own natural communicative skills to carry the interviews out effectively. It is useful to consider the advantages. If you get co-operation (from individuals or as the result of dealing with a gatekeeper like a section head), you get high returns. Information is likely to be correct, and interviews allow you to add and amend if things appear false or inadequate. Interviews can be adapted to the level and personality of the respondents, last as long or as short as you think necessary, and draw out the spontaneous reactions of the respondents. They can build on what the researcher has already observed and, if you ask respondents similar questions, they can easily be compared. Interviews are good ways of eliciting opinions on complex and sensitive issues. At the same time, there are difculties with research interviews which should not be underestimated. If many are carried out, the research can prove expensive in staff and time. They are often intensive and time-consuming, which runs the risk of covering only a small and possibly unrepresentative sample of

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respondents. Respondents may feel obliged to t their experiences into a rather rigid template of interview questions, making their evidence unreliable. Respondents may even try to deceive the researcher, however unwittingly, by hiding or misrepresenting things, showing guile or spleen, or simply as a result of being inuenced on an interpersonal level by the researcher. Researcher bias and subjectivity are major challenges for interviews, and any thought-through methodology (e.g. an interview schedule) should try to cut it down to a minimum. Other problems arise associated with recording or transcribing data while the interview is taking place: respondents may not want to talk on the record, may respond in idiosyncratic ways which makes comparison with other respondents difcult, and may say so much that organizing the information afterwards is time-consuming and complicated. There are also different types of research interview, from the informal, where the process can be shaped to the individual situation and context and where the respondent feels relaxed and unassessed, to the fully structured interview, where a schedule of questions is followed with each respondent, and where organizing and quantifying the ndings are generally straightforward. There are many stages in-between, where guidance can be given in an informal setting and where, within a structure, a fair number of open questions can be asked. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses, and each may be more or less suitable for particular types and areas of research: e.g. the highly-structured approach may be good for eliciting information about large numbers of people using a reference library or for nding out peoples choice of consumer product, while informality and an open structure tend to be preferable when complex, personal or sensitive issues are being probed (e.g. perceptions of discrimination at work, disagreement with company policy, fears about redundancy). In formal and informal interviewing, there is always a risk of putting ideas into the heads of respondents, or giving them a clue about what they think you want to hear. As Patton[2] says, The purpose of open-ended interviewing is not to put things in someones mind...but to access the perspective of the person being interviewed. Other choices involve deciding whether to interview people individually or in groups (e.g. focus groups), and face-to-face 24

or remotely (e.g. by telephone). Often, factors like choice of the best research method have to be weighed up along with time, cost, researcher skill, and how far the respondents and their organization are able and willing to co-operate. There may also be a research sponsor with their own agenda and timetable.

Practical aspects of research interviews

There are numerous practical challenges to setting up research interviews. Some of these derive from decisions about the nature of the research itself. For instance, it may be that the researcher aspires to gather information about the purpose and frequency of usage of business information services by small local rms in a city, or conduct a survey of non-use of services by elderly people on the route currently taken by the mobile library. Before research can start, these respondent groups need to be identied and, if they exist and if they are feasibly researchable, representatives identied from within the sampling frame. Criteria for sampling are themselves complex, drawing on statistical principles and qualitative and pragmatic factors. After identication, respondents need to be approached. Practical problems may make this difcult people are busy and may be suspicious (survey fatigue?), they may be widely dispersed geographically, and they may need to be approached through gatekeepers in organizations who may steer you towards unrepresentative respondents or even prevent you from seeing them. It may be necessary to provide people with enough information in advance to persuade them to take part and assure them of condentiality, and this might pose the risk of inuencing the ndings later. The practical problems stem out of the researchers original choice of methodology, of course, and the understanding he/she has of the validity and reliability of the information which the methodology is likely to provide. It is good if the practical problems can be identied early on so that the research problem is formulated in achievable terms and so that the methodology does not have to be changed radically later, casting doubt on the original design and dampening the morale of the researcher. We could call this the planning stage of research interviews, when the research problem and methodology are set in motion. A rationale for using interviews is useful in the

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rst place. Then there are the issues to be investigated by the research, the identication and selection of the respondents, leading to setting up the interviews themselves. Potential respondents need to know what the research is about and what it is for, why they have been selected for interview, and how their replies will be treated. Practical matters like the where and when of the interviews (e.g. halfan-hour in your own ofce), the what and why (e.g. their information-seeking behaviour with a view to advising the company on adjusting or improving current services, or skills in handling CD-ROM as a result of an information skills course), and the how (e.g. following a short schedule of questions, notes taken by the researcher, use of a tape recorder), all need to be worked out in advance. The sequence of research interviews in itself will need careful use of the diary, and there may be a preferred order of respondents at odds with the availability of the people concerned. Interviews may be planned after running a survey by questionnaire with a larger group of respondents, and a decision may need to be made throughout the planning and interview process about how much to disclose to gatekeepers and respondents about the research agenda itself. This usually arises from the need to carry out reliable unobtrusive research, rather than from the intention to manipulate or deceive. Other practical problems arise in conducting the interview, what techniques to use in the interview, and what to do with the outcomes of the interview. Then, once the research is successfully completed, there are further practical decisions: whether the ndings can be published, whether they should be made subject to any collaborators veto, and the extent to which, from the evidence, conclusions and recommendations can validly be made.

Conducting research interviews

The research interview will be much affected by how formal it is, that is to say how far it is structured by predetermined questions or an interview schedule, and how far open questions are provided. Whichever is used, writers on research methods emphasize how important it is for the researcher to establish rapport with the respondent. Mellon[3] calls this the introduction and small talk phase of the research interview, preceding the interview itself and intended as a time to build rapport 25

and to inform the respondent about the purpose and use of interview data (unless that has been done before). The intention is to get the respondent talking freely, and frequent advice for the researcher is to say something about yourself and not remain aloof. Assure the respondent about condentiality, be honest and avoid jargon. If you are taperecording the interview, conrm that you have their permission, and say they can go off the record if they wish at any time. Warm-up questions may be used as a transition into the interview itself, which focuses on the research issues. These may follow the schedule or checklist, and may broaden out from them as the interview proceeds or at the end. Mellon[3] stresses how, as far as possible, it is important to explore each issue before moving on to the next, although tactics may dictate your coming back to unanswered questions later. A useful point she also makes is the need, at times, to provide transitional information as you go along (e.g. explaining how a particular question ts to the research). The relationship with the respondents is crucial to the success of the interview. Orchestrating it effectively is a mature research skill, balancing your role and impact between encouraging and controlling, engaging actively in a discussion while at the same time transcribing or checking progress, reecting on implications, or wondering how to redirect mere chat or bravado, and coping with the very real possibility that your very presence is having an effect on the situation. Communicating a genuine interest in the respondents views might be difcult, particularly if the researcher is tired or even bored and, as in counselling where empathy is important, it is important to come across as non-judgemental. Taylor and Bogdan[4] remind us how selfdeprecating respondents can be, starting statements with phrases like You must think Im crazy but..., as if they are expecting disapproval from the researcher (even though the interview is entirely different from appraisal!) Getting the balance between interest and prying curiosity is sometimes difcult, as is being genuinely sensitive as opposed to patronizing. One of the most challenging skills for a researcher to learn is to probe, particularly where he/she believes that the respondent is making assumptions (about other people, the organization, human behaviour generally, the political situation, and about the assumptions they think they nd in

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you) which need to be examined. After all, information like this may be the most valuable ethnographic material to emerge from the research. Probing is no mean skill, as can be seen from watching television interviewers, and needs subtle timing as you come in with an unforced comment such as How did you feel then? or What happened after that? It may be useful to devise hidden cross-check questions for conrming or reafrming facts or opinions which surface in the interview, particularly if you believe that the respondent is being inconsistent or deceptive. It may bring the discussion back on track and ensure that the whole interview is completed on time. Glesne and Pleshkin[5] call the whole process making words y in their discussion on developing understanding from interviewing (in their book Becoming Qualitative Researchers), an analogy from baseball. To make sure that words do y and do not get bogged down in awkwardness and jargon, their advice is to test the questions live beforehand (in a pilot) to make sure that they are clear, relevant, and in the best order. Some of the questions might be devised as if you, the researcher, are just a specialized kind of learner, with a nave innocence wanting the respondent to explain. Glesne and Pleshkin[5] quote Jack Douglas in emphasizing the need for researchers to be subordinate to their interviewees because inter viewees hold the knowledge and the power...the power to reject your request for an interview, to terminate interviews once begun, to refuse to answer some questions fully or at all, and to hold back generally in their consideration of your questions. They go on to say that the researcher might regard his/her role as extending beyond the acquisition of data to a concern for the respondents wellbeing...Your need is to express this concern without saying Im with you, on your side . It is all about how you react and how far your reactions can be regarded as generally supportive without being directive or therapeutic. Many of the skills or techniques the researcher needs to use in the interview appear easy because they have their origins in natural human encounters. But, in the formal, and often very self-conscious and selfmonitoring setting of a research interview, they become quite hard to employ well and deliberately. For instance, letting people talk and paying attention to what they say are 26

difcult at the best of times for some of us, while in the research interview the goal of eliciting relevant research information serves to pressure us into doing this as a deliberate and chosen set of actions. It is easy to let a research interview degenerate into a conversation, or even chat, which is an opportunity wasted. Techniques which are useful include the following: establishing rapport; keeping the discussion going; asking questions which avoid closed yes/no answers; avoiding jargon and abstractions; avoiding double negatives and loaded expressions; knowing when not to interrupt and even letting silences work for you; being non-judgemental; and knowing how to focus and pace the interview. All these can and should be practised: they are not natural skills researchers are born with, but they can be learned and become instinctive and intuitive. It may be important to judge when natural breaks occur in the interview. All the skills in the world can sometimes come unstuck when the respondent directs questions back (for instance, alleging that the research is not very useful or even that it is invasive). Some of these techniques relate to the body language and proxemics (i.e. personal space and relative positions of players) of the research interview. Mellon[3] identies dress (formal or not), body posture and seating arrangement, eye contact and gestures. These are associated in complicated ways with the interpersonal reactions of researcher and respondent, with the kinds of material being covered at various stages of the interview, and with the repertoire of comments and questions used by both parties. Manheim and Rich[6] go as far as enumerating rules for interviewing which include these techniques, linking them helpfully with those techniques concerned with recording the actual information the interview is designed to reveal, and with the wider principles of validity and reliability in the research itself. The individual techniques are worth linking to the overall picture we have of ourselves as research interviewers, and what attributes we think we should develop to be effective.

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Glesne and Pleshkin[5] helpfully suggest being: good at anticipating the needs of the situation; alert to establish rapport with respondents; able to adopt a learner role; analytical in picking out the meanings and explanations of greatest relevance; non-reactive and non-directive in keeping your research self back and avoiding visibly sharing the respondents meanings; and being able to probe, clarify, and do justice to the complexity of the subject. They should also be considered in relation to the style of interviewing the researcher elects to use. There is a tendency to use an empathetic exploratory style in research interviews, remaining emotionally neutral. It is even possible to see Socratic features in some research interviews, as researchers midwife understandings from respondents, using ethnography to reveal not just behaviour and attitudes but to draw these out in terms of the meanings the actors themselves are prepared to admit using.

Organizing the information

Information plays a complex and pervasive role throughout the whole research process, from the formulation of the research question and choice of methodology through to the dissemination of the ndings. Research interviews will arguably have been chosen as a uniquely relevant and effective means of gathering the information from respondents, and the information itself, as well as the methodology, will have been identied as addressing and satisfying the research requirements of validity and reliability, generalizability (that critical inductive feature of good qualitative research) and truth (i.e. the way in which the research relates to the knowable, empirical and epistemological world). However, here the information we are most concerned about is the information arising from the research interview itself. One of the strengths of ethnographic analysis, which often uses interviews, is that it is able to represent the behaviour and attitudes of the actors in the actors own terms. Another is that it can reect the idiosyncratic complexity of the setting it examines (e.g. a group of professional librarians in a large 27

public library, information skills provision in six secondary schools in eastern Scotland, nancial decision making by senior managers in the health service or the water industry, judgements about the newsworthiness of particular stories by journalists on a national broadsheet newspaper). Given these strengths, then, it comes as no surprise that the information arising from research interviews is often complex, discursive, and difcult to organize. Even when an interview schedule is used, and care is taken to select and order the questions, and comparability between respondents is straightforward, even then the information can present very real challenges. An interview schedule is a useful device for focusing responses and ensuring some degree of comparability between respondents. Kane[7] recommends its use when interviewing a large number of people, particularly if their answers are likely (or can be made) to fall into clear-cut categories which can be coded and processed. The respondents may come from a homogeneous group and have characteristics and attitudes in common, in which case a schedule can conrm similarity and consensus, and elicit subtle distinctions hitherto unacknowledged. Schedules can be particularly useful when the respondents are heterogeneous (e.g. working in different sections of industry and commerce, or at different levels of public sector organizations, or with widely different social and cultural attributes), bringing the disparate responses together for comparison (so long as the meanings conveyed and elicited by the interview schedule are themselves comparable). Such schedules can structure the information (e.g. from neutral biographical facts to more detailed and subjective information, or arranging it in terms of types of products or services most frequently used by a group of respondents), and provide a sound foundation for analysis. For example, Taylor and Nichols[8] were able to structure information about the information-gathering habits of sports professionals, and focus on issues like the use of particular organizations, regularity and sophistication of demand, where information fell short, and whether respondents information habits and expectations had changed over time. A different example can be found in Robert Reiners[9] research on chief constables where, using an interview

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schedule, he was able to move from neutral topics like the police function to more wide-ranging and controversial issues like controlling crime and the role of the police in maintaining public order in a democracy. Information can be relatively easy to organize under the headings established in the schedule, which itself should derive naturally from the major issues arising in the original research problem. Traditionally, one of the greatest challenges for researchers using interviews has been that of organizing the information or data effectively. Even when there is a schedule, the responses can be extensive and widely differentiated, particularly when open questions evoke free-owing discursive answers. The information from research interviews is usually gathered in written or audio form (sometimes video, as in focus group research). If material is to be recorded in written form, some researchers recommend an interview schedule with spaces for jotted notes which can be made clearer and more legible later. Real challenges exist in recording the data while conducting the interview, since it may not only mean that one process suffers at the expense of the other, but also that the respondent may be distracted. Challenges exist also in taking down information which is more extensive than short notes, particularly answers to open questions where whole sentences may be required to convey the meaning. Decisions need to be made, too, about whether to transcribe hesitations and anacolutha (where respondents dry up but do not appear to have nished) and silences, asides, sarcastic comments, points at which the researcher has to intervene, and the rest, and whether, by recording such features, the analysis has become more a linguistic analysis[10]. Unless the researcher is skilled in shorthand, he/she may decide to write the information down in note form and write up the notes immediately afterwards. The advantage of this method is that, with the interview fresh in the researchers memory, notes can be put together clearly, bringing out the major features. Disadvantages include memory lapses, inability to interpret notes, and danger of imposing a false coherence or meaning on the material. Because of the difculties associated with using only written forms, many researchers use taped evidence and transcribe it. This is 28

not an easy option, since careful selection of what to transcribe is essential. It is important to write the actual words spoken by your informants, however repetitive, slangy or ungrammatical[7]. Conventions might be needed to make this coherent and clear, e.g. using brackets to indicate smiles or gestures (if relevant), or a tone of voice which suggests irony. Minichiello[11] recommends making sure that, at the start of each interview transcription, a rubric of informants name, topic, date and place, and other key circumstantial information, be provided for reference. It is good also to leave wide spaces around and between the transcription so that the text is suitable for analysis and coding, and probably redistribution (e.g. under categories, or linked with associated passages), later. An important step, too, is to decide whether to include your own reections and interpretations in (or alongside, e.g. in parallel text) the transcription of the interview. It may be that further sources of documentation like written evidence from respondents may need to be collated with the transcriptions. One thing is sure: all this material cries out for analysis into relevant and usable themes or categories.

Categorizing the information

The amount of information likely to arise in the course of a research interview is considerable: in half-an-hour (and many interviews are longer) the equivalent of pages of transcription from a taped interview are customary, involving the researcher in long hours of transcription and then analysis, as issues are recorded and contrasted, similarities and differences revealed, and information is organized into usable categories for integration into the overall arguments and ndings of the research. It may be that the questions have been designed with a high expectation that certain responses will arise, conforming to ideas or a model created in advance (so-called a priori reasoning) or categories or attributes which have been realistically established from earlier or similar research. On the other hand, ways of organizing the information may be more inductive, as qualitative research itself often is: this means that principles or laws are formulated from the evidence of examples. Information from research interviews can be analysed this way,

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building up an ever-clearer and more comprehensive picture of ethnographic reality from respondents answers, inferring and developing categories, attributing responses or parts of responses to this or that category. It may be, for example, that responses from a group of professional librarians might reveal suspicion of the effects of the introduction of performance-related pay on team building, and categories might emerge as being for and against PRP, or based on perceived characteristics of good teams, or distinctions between respondents in managerial and other posts. Categories of information and information need might be used to group ndings e.g. those sports or health professionals who regularly read particular journals, users willing to pay for particular services, librarians who identied nancial management as a major training need at the present time. Analysis might well take in the subjective meanings used by the respondents themselves, e.g. if a signicant number of respondents referred to the service ideal as dead in an income-generating public library service (its perceived truth being important, regardless of its empirical truth), or if the delegation of delegated school management was regarded by some respondents as an opportunity for local initiative. These might then form appropriate themes around which to categorize the information. In such a way, a coherent ethnographic representation of the ndings can be created. It may involve returning regularly to the reality of the research setting (the department, the organization and the user group), and grounding the developing categories of information on and in that. Organization and analysis of the information might be both deductive (in conrming known general principles or presuppositions) and inductive (in providing evidence from which to infer the existence or truth of such principles). Classifying information often employs codes (e.g. for a context, topic, how informants dene a topic, what they think about it, how things happen and/or change over time, particular events or activities, how people deal with events or decisions, and what kinds of relationship exist between events and/or people). These may be located in particular concepts or terms used by the respondents (e.g. what they regard as fair), in the generic 29

meaning of a paragraph (e.g. how a promotion was made), in the alignment of an argument or viewpoint (e.g. that journalists emphasize human interest in feature articles), in personal referentialities (e.g. the feeling that no one would normally ask them about such an issue), in the use of irony, or in the way in which a respondent says he/she would respond to particular challenges. Coding the information can also involve identifying those respondents who expressed particular viewpoints or reacted in particular ways when in a group situation (if you are working with groups). Such work might also need to take account of group dynamics, dominant and submissive personalities, the effects of disagreement, and the relative seriousness with which each participant took the subject. Analysis of individual or group information may lead to the development of a typology of actions or habits, perceptions or attitudes (e.g. seven recurring ways in which respondents admitted to using library stock, the priority order users had for inter-library loans, and major characteristics of the self-concept professional managers revealed about themselves). This typology can be of critical importance to the overall research design, conrming and proving certain research hypotheses, illuminating practice and experience in the workplace, and revealing hitherto unknown assumptions about a targeted group of respondents. This in its turn goes back to the research aims, design and methodology, and should, other things being equal, enable the researcher to complete his/her research, writing up the ndings and providing conclusions and recommendations.

Conclusion
Research interviews are a popular form of qualitative research in the social sciences, including information and library studies. Even so, the challenges and pitfalls are often underestimated until research is well under way, not least of all the often bewildering wealth of evidence research interviews can throw up, the demands of organizing and analysing the information, and the reliability of it all at the end. Qualitative research has had its critics, arguing on the grounds of subjectivity (too much) and control (too little), and the research interview, probably along with the case study, is more susceptible

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to this criticism than other qualitative methods like the questionnaire (which can at least have the support of reliable sampling theory). However, with a properly thought-through research design, realistic identication of the research interview as a valid and reliable instrument for the task in hand, meticulous data analysis and inductive reasoning, and an understanding of the purpose and character of ethnographic research, the researcher should both gain and achieve a lot through using the method. It is exible, accessible, intelligible, and at its best highly illuminative of important and often hidden aspects of human behaviour and belief, and as such deserves a long and productive life.

Further reading
Birn, R., Hague, P. and Vangelder, P., A Handbook of Market Research Techniques, Kogan Page, London, 1990. Breakwell, G., Interviewing, British Psychological Society, Routledge, London, 1990. Coolican, H., Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology, Hodder & Stoughton, Sevenoaks, Kent, 1990. Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Lowe, A., Management Research: An Introduction, Sage, Newbury Park and London, 1991. Estabrook, L. (Ed.), Applying Research to Practice, Allerton Park Institute paper, No. 33, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Campaign, 1992. Gill, J. and Johnson, P., Research Methods for Managers, Paul Chapman, London, 1991. Glazier, J.D. and Powell, R.R., Qualitative Research in Information Management, Libraries Unlimited, Englewood, CO, 1992. Hakim, C., Research Design, Unwin Hyman, London, 1987. Hannabuss, S., Approaches to research, Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 47 No. 1, 3-11 January 1995. Hayes, R.M., Strategic Management for Academic Libraries: A Handbook, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT and London, 1993. Homan, R., The Ethics of Social Research, Longman, London, 1991. Kimmel, A.J., Ethics and Values of Applied Social Research, Sage, Newbury Park, CA and London, 1988. Kreuger, R.A., Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA and London, 1994. May, T., Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1993. Miller, D.C., Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement, 5th ed., Sage, Newbury Park, CA and London, 1991. Pearce, J.L., Volunteers: The Organizational Behaviour of Unpaid Workers, Routledge, London, 1993. Riley, J., Getting the Most from Your Data, Technical & Educational Services, Bristol, 1990. Silverman, D., Qualitative Methodology and Sociology: Describing the Social Word, Gower, Aldershot, 1985. Walker, R. (Ed.), Applied Qualitative Research, Gower, Aldershot, 1985.

References
1 Schwartzmann, H., Ethnography in Organizations, Sage, Newbury Park, CT and London, 1993. 2 Patton, M.Q., Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods, 2nd ed., Sage, Newbury Park, CA and London, 1990. 3 Mellon, C.A., Naturalistic Inquiry for Library Science, Greenwood Press, New York, Westport, CT and London, 1990. 4 Taylor, S.J. and Bogdan, R., Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods, 2nd ed., Wiley, New York, NY, 1984. 5 Glesne, C. and Pleshkin, A., Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction, Longman, London, 1992. 6 Manheim, J.B. and Rich, R.C., Empirical Political Analysis, 3rd ed., Longman, London, 1991. 7 Kane, E., Doing Your Own Business Research, Boyars, London, 1985. 8 Taylor, P. and Nichols, G., UK Sports Information Services: An Investigation of Demand by People with a Professional Interest in Sport, Sports Council, London, 1993. 9 Reiner, R., Chief Constables: Bobbies, Bosses, or Bureaucrats, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991. 10 Langford, D., Analysing Talk: Investigating Verbal Interaction in English, Macmillan, London, 1994. 11 Minichiello, C.V., Aroni, R., Timewell, E. and Alexander, L., In-depth Interviewing: Researching People, Longman Cheshire, London, 1992.

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