Qualitative Research Methods in Library and Information Science [ELIS Classic]

Sutton’s essay is a masterpiece of concise, clear, and measured exposition on this difficult area of methodological theory and practice. As Sutton notes at the beginning: “What we call qualitative research out of convenience is actually a diverse collection of philosophies, historical traditions, discipline-specific concepts, and useful practices. One goal of this article is to articulate this diversity. Another is to demonstrate that the dualistic character that the methodological debate has sometimes taken, pitting qualitative against quantitative approaches, is unproductive, not to say unrealistic.”

— ELIS Classic , from 1998