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To report on the findings obtained through a field study in information infrastructure of rural areas of Romania.

Researchers interviewed Romanian villagers using the same interpreter regarding a village's information needs and requirements. The village's information infrastructure was also surveyed. Because the literature on information infrastructures has focused primarily on macro issues (those national and international in scale), this project centered on micro (local) issues. A history of Romania's information infrastructure is presented and relevant literature reviewed. This is followed by a discussion of research methods used, and then the findings are presented and analyzed.

The research determined that global information infrastructure (GII) and national information infrastructure (NII) literature is incomplete and needs to give more attention to local and rural (micro level) issues. The findings also raise the question of whether the term equity is “misused” in today's discussions of national and international information infrastructures.

This was not an exhaustive study. Further studies in the information infrastructure and information requirements of those who live in rural communities are needed in order to fully understand them.

Further research will help to identify ways to help improve rural information infrastructures in less developed nation/states.

Little attention in GII/NII literature has been given to the information infrastructure of rural or local areas (micro‐level issues). Focusing research on this subject will help those who live in areas like these.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of using qualitative research methods, such as ethnography, in community analysis within the library and information science (LIS) community.

The authors review the LIS literature on community analysis up to May 2004, critique a representative case study and compare its results to what emerged from the research carried out in rural Romania summer of 2004. Students and faculty from Emporia State University and Ball State University in May 2004 gathered qualitative data on the rural information infrastructure and the information needs and of residents in the Romanian community of Lunca Ilvei. The research team used ethnographic methods to collect data and found this method to be effective in the analysis and understanding of the community's information behavior.

Community analysis in LIS has relied primarily on quantitative methods. While quantitative methods can give the researcher some information about a given community, these methods cannot always produce community sensitive and appropriate statements. Ethnography can produce this kind of data which can be used to assess and plan library services.

The argument rests on a single village study. However, the paper's review of the literature and its analysis of a key example of community analysis strengthen the argument.

As libraries strive to serve communities and remain relevant to their users research methodologies, like ethnography, that are effective in revealing information needs, wants, behaviors, and fulfillment need be accepted as legitimate and distributed throughout the library community.