Culture’s complications: the problem of global data collection in a world of difference Available to Purchase

This paper specifically refers to the problems of data collection within a PhD project where the research is on a global scale. While it can be difficult to collect adequate amounts of data in some subject areas, the area of research covered – libraries and barriers to accessing information resources on the Internet – is overflowing with information sources due to the global scale of the project and the capability of the Internet to provide vast amounts of topical information, especially in a subject area related to itself. The data collection process is further complicated by the variety of disciplines that need to be drawn on in order to create a firm theoretical framework for a study of this scale. This paper looks at the effects of these problems on the data collection process and the attempts made by the author to select a research methodology that will enable analytic generalisation within the theoretical structure.