Stay on target...

While the nature of my research question hasn’t changed drastically over the course of the term (the artifact, the method and the case study have all stayed the same) the reasons behind my project have evolved through reflection on numerous methods, all of which are remarkably not suited to answering the question I wish to ask.

As I’ve worked, my question has become more focused and detailed. From the daisy exercise (Luker, 2008, p. 83) which forced me to take all the tangled ideas in my head and write them down, to the process of trying to explain technical concepts in accessible and succinct language for the SSHRC proposed outline of research, I’ve been able to tease out the larger underlying question that I’ve been staring at all along and have struggled to articulate.

I’ve gone from looking at some books which I thought would be interesting to collate and analyze through bibliography to knowing that I want to examine the potentially culturally-biased assumptions which underlie analytical bibliographic approaches through a case study of the Sagabon Tales of Ise books.

Method after method interested me, but didn’t fit well with this project; I still believe that analytical bibliography and digital collation are the best method and technique to examine this problem through doing. The one thing which has changed the most was my search for a framework. This was a case of knowing what I wanted to do, and later why I wanted to do it, but being unable to articulate a proper set of terms and ideology in which to understand and explain it. 

Through gaining a better understanding of what, exactly, a framework was meant to provide me, I was able to finally link my project properly with McKenzie’s sociology of texts. His understanding of what constitutes a ‘text’ is the missing link I need to provide a framework for expanding these techniques to books which are not traditionally examined using these methods.

I think my biggest challenge going forward will be figuring out how to convey the highly particular tools associated with analytical bibliography [collation, analysis of paper stock and bindings, and even elements of descriptive bibliography such as a collation statement] in a way that is accessible more widely within the information and textual scholarship communities. Identifying the things which I know but which others don’t, as I work to ensure I contextualize technical terms correctly, will be challenging.

Sources:
Luker, K. (2008). Salsa dancing into the social sciences: Research in an age of info-glut. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.