Finding the way to the field

     In order to locate the field for different types of information research, I took a closer look at our readings on ethnography and tried to draw out some of the assumptions paired with the field:

• Is the “natural environ” of the subject of study (Hartel, 2010, p. 852)
• Involves a gatekeeper, gaining access, and the continual renegotiation of roles throughout the life of the research (Davidson and Leyder, 1994, p. 169 & 171)
• A place that generates information, but under constraints that require multiple stages of notetaking in order to capture the entirety of the observations. (Hartel, 2010, p. 854; Davidson and Leyder, 1994, p. 172)
• Is generally limited to a single, small-scale place of social interaction. Though multiple fields may be used, usually other fields are mentioned as contextualization and a single field is selected for research (Davidson and Leyder, 1994, p. 174)

     I think that part of the difficulty in locating this field in an information context is less to do with The Field itself, and more to do with the incredible variety in subjects of study. A field for a traditional bibliographer will look largely different from the field for an IS specialist examining adoption rates, which is different again from the field of a librarian studying patron behaviour.

I wanted to consider the field of two research projects I am currently working on, paired with the above understandings. 

     The first, the collation of early printed Japanese texts. The particular book that I hope to study complicates the notion of the field because each copy is located in a discrete geographic location. Anywhere from Cambridge University, to the National Diet Library in Japan. In this case, the notion of selecting a single field for small-scale research doesn’t apply. Even with the narrow scope of a single publication, there are many fields, each with their own context and gatekeepers, which are arguably the natural environment of the book.

     Secondly, I am involved in a project focused on bibliographic records as preservation for variant versions of MMORPGs. In this case, studying multiple games and attempting to understand very small changes between patches, the field is very much online. Again, the notion of a single field is complicated. The project covers numerous games and involves publisher-provided information, community sourced information, and the in-game communities themselves. Each element is governed by its own gatekeepers, generates distinct information, and requires separate contextualization.

     While I strongly believe that both these projects use the direct gathering of information produced from work in their various fields, challenging the concept of a field can expand potential sources of primary information; where the subject of study retains its power to surprise.

Sources:

Davidson, J., & Layder, D. (1994). Methods, sex, and madness. London: Routledge.

Hartel, J. (2010). Managing documents at home for serious leisure: A case study of the hobby of gourmet cooking. Journal of Documentation, 66(6), 847-874.