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Contemporary developments in technology provide opportunities for qualitative researchers to enhance their modes of collecting rich data for analysis. In this article we explore the utility and impact of using email as a means of collecting data in the form of semi‐structured interviews. We investigate what participants think about email interviews, and how they view the relationship between email interviews and online pedagogies. We illustrate our discussion with reference to a recent research project carried out using email interviews with professional colleagues, including analyses of the respondents’ own insights about the methodology. We conclude that email interviews provide a useful medium to explore the experiences of an international group of participants, including some for whom English is not their first language. Further, the method enables respondents to participate in the process of collaborative knowledge building as co‐researchers, by reflecting on and analysing their own responses in the email interviews

The purpose of this paper is to investigate ways in which university students are introduced to disciplines and thence to the professions based on those disciplines.

E‐mail interviews with a broad sample of university teachers in a variety of professional disciplines formed the basis of a grounded theory approach to identification of analytically distinct themes.

Four different approaches were identified from the interview data, labelled as academic, apprenticeship, affective, and experiential. While these themes represent distinct approaches to introductory classes in professional fields, and have been described independently in the paper, in practice most teachers would use combinations of them.

The research represents a first stage in investigating approaches to introducing students to a discipline and profession. No claim is made to randomness, completeness or representativeness of the sample, which indeed was heavily based on colleagues in the broad area of pedagogy and teacher preparation.

Teachers of introductory classes in professional disciplines can recognise their own approaches in the themes identified, and can consider a broader range of approaches based on the complete results. Workplace supervisors can consider diverse approaches utilised in academic settings.

Findings can contribute towards an awareness of the effect of introductory approaches to disciplines and professions in university classes, with potential implications for the way that university‐trained professionals are accepted into the workplace.

The research, unusually, shifts the focus from the end stage of professional education at university to the initial level. The investigation may form the basis of further research.

In the past, librarians, museum curators and archivists have responded to ICT developments by adapting them to traditional working practices such as cataloguing. Recent developments are creating new pressures, however, and the expectations on information professionals are changing. The most radical innovation is that of the Internet, and it may no longer be appropriate to think in traditional terms to exploit this new medium to the full. The Internet offers remote access and digitisation programmes are being designed to make use of that. So far, these programmes have concentrated on the digitisation of finding aids or of selected primary source materials, but there is also a need for other programmes (“digital exhibitions”) to be developed with a greater emphasis on collaboration and interpretation, aimed at the non‐academic, or casual user. In this way librarians, museum curators and archivists can demonstrate their readiness to embrace the visions of such programmes as the People’s Network and the National Grid for Learning and at the same time reach a whole new audience.

The paper aims to explore the context in which local authority archives and records services are operating, in terms of national and local outcomes and targets. It considers what contribution archives services might make towards those outcomes and targets, in general and specific terms. It aims to show archivists and records managers the importance of aligning themselves with the priorities of their local authorities, especially at a time when public sector finances are under scrutiny, and considers some of the challenges that might involve.

The paper takes the Glasgow City Council cultural strategy as an example, and considers in detail both how that strategy is shaped by the Scottish Government's national outcomes, and as a result how archives are reflected in it, drawing a “golden thread” from the Scottish Government's national statement of purpose all the way down to Glasgow City Council's cultural action plan with its plans for the archives service.

The paper shows that, although in principle it is relatively easy to make a case for the contribution of archives to local cultural outcomes, in practice those outcomes are frequently focused too narrowly to allow much opportunity for archives to play a part.

This paper fulfils a recognised need by showing the importance of archives and records services aligning themselves with the priorities of their local authorities, and offers practical advice to enable them to do so.

The lives of gifted young adolescents are often subject to adult‐generated and expert narratives that can impact a developing sense of self. However, opportunities for gifted young adolescents to represent themselves as informants can emerge through digital forms of qualitative research. This paper reports on the value of digital writing of journal entries, delivered by email to a researcher over several months, as an alternative to face‐to‐face interviews. Journaling methods combined with techniques of ‘listening for voices’ can support young adolescents in generating their own multi‐vocal narratives of self. This method capturing self‐narratives in email form has the potential to produce rich understandings of individual young adolescents’ self‐constructions.

The British Library National Sound Archive has published an important reference book Directory of Recorded Sound Resources in the United Kingdom, 1989, 173pp., ISBN 0 7123 0502 5. It is compiled and edited by Lali Weerasinghe, with research by Jeremy Silver and lists 489 collections of both privately made and rare commercial recordings in the UK, covering all subject areas. Addresses of the collections, opening hours, conditions of access and details of size and contents are given. The arrangement is initially under county of location but the indexes include subjects, names of collections and individuals and thus allows research across any desired topic. The collecting bodies include libraries, museums, record offices, learned societies, archives, radio stations, business and industry; and collections have been comprehensively sought out, though it surprises me that the British Film Institute is missed because it must have many historical recordings coupled with moving images. This directory is a worthy addition to the growing number of valuable National Sound Archive publications. Its price, in hardback, is £30 from the British Library Publications Sales Unit, Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7BQ.

THE purpose of this article is to describe two methods, which may be employed independently of chemical analysis and within their limitations, to classify steels.