Copyright Sociological Research Online, 1996

ESRC Qualitative Data Archival Resource Centre (QUALIDATA)

The QUALIDATA Resource Centre located in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex has now been in existence for almost two years. Its aims are: locating, assessing and documenting qualitative data and arranging for their deposit in suitable public archive repositories; disseminating information about such data; and raising archival consciousness among the social science research community. Ultimately, the Centre aims to implement a policy ensuring that qualitative data produced by future ESRC and other funded projects are offered for archiving. Those applying to ESRC for research grants over the past few months will have noticed the inclusion of questions relating to plans for archiving any qualitative data they produce. Principal investigators must therefore now be extra thoughtful in their plans for 'processing' materials they generate in the course of their research, for example, ensuring that interviews are fully transcribed and that tape recordings are of good sound quality.

A major function of the Centre is to maintain an information database about the extent and availability of qualitative research material in general whether deposited in public repositories or remaining with the researcher. The data we are concerned with is from the broad spectrum of social research., from academic, policy and government, trust and charity funded research and includes in-depth interviews, fieldnotes, anthropological materials, unstructured diaries, observational recordings, audio or video tapes, photographs and so on. With the discipline of education being so broad, there is an abundance of qualitative data produced in the course of research. The Centre has surveyed almost 1500 identifiable ESRC funded qualitative social research projects dating back to 1970, by contacting principal investigators, is tracing the data arising from classic post-war sociological studies and monitors current ESRC projects. The QUALIDATA database will be available via the INTERNET from October, from which researchers will be able to search and obtain descriptions of qualitative research material, its location and accessibility. The WWW Home Page for the Centre containing detailed guidelines for depositing qualitative data, data deposited, issues relating to confidentiality and copyright, information about the Centre and links and references to other qualitative resources and repositories, has the following URL address:

http://www.essex.ac.uk/qualidata

This information is also available in hard copy.

Deposits

• Interviews generated by three major studies using in-depth life-histories have been deposited with the National Sound Archive in London. Comprising nearly 2,000 tapes (750 interviews) this will make available in the country's major public sound archive all the taped interviews from the seminal projects Family Life and Work Experience Before 1918 and Middle and Upper Class Families. The latter was aimed at painting a national picture of ordinary life in Edwardian Britain through more than 500 interviews with people born before 1905. In addition, the interviews from a later project, Families, Social Mobility and Ageing: An Intergenerational Approach will be available for the first time. This was a 1980's study aimed at gathering ethnographic and dynamic information illustrative of family, ageing and social mobility through interviewing several generations of 110 families. A further development from this was the project On the Edge of Later Life which looked at sources for self-identity and the contribution of earlier life experiences to adaptability to ageing. Data from this oral history study on Fishing Communities and Industry in East Anglia and N. E. Scotland is also available. All located at the National Sound Archive (NSA), British Library and at the Oral History Archive at Essex University.
• Professor Fred Lindop's Unofficial Union Militancy in British Docks (1981 and 1983) concerned with the ideas and activities of shop-stewards and trade union activists in the dock industry in Britain. Located at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.
• Professor Ray Pahl's Isle of Sheppey Study focusing on industry and training in the 1980's and his 1961 study of three Hertfordshire villages.
• Professor Robert Dingwall's Protection of Children Study concerning agency decision making in child protection in the early 1980's. The project is based on an ethnographic study of agency work using case studies, observation and interviews. Located at the Wellcome Contemporary Medical Archives Centre.
• Paul Thompson and Professor Ray Pahl's Families, Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial Values: Britain and Russia, a comparative investigation of family and cultural sources of entrepreneurial values and activity in Britain and Russia. Located at the National Sound Archive, British Library and the School of Eastern European and Slavonic Studies at the University of Leeds. See QUALIDATA's WWW site or contact the Centre for further details of deposits, including those deposited with the ESRC Data Archive. There is also a large number of important existing datasets still be to catalogued, in libraries, research centres or remaining with researchers where access is permitted. These include data from socio-linguistics/conversation analysis and many anthropological projects as well as traditional ethnography.

  Whilst there are many special collections and 'natural homes' across the UK for data in most of the social science fields we deal with, we have not, so far, made links with many repositories of existing collections of qualitative data relating to educational research who would be willing to extend access to their collections to the research community. QUALIDATA would be very grateful for any suggestions regarding suitable 'homes' for specific kinds of educational research data.

  The National Social Policy and Social Change Archive at Essex

  The Centre has recently received a two year grant from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to create a National Social Policy and Social Change Archive to be based at the University of Essex. The period since 1945 has certainly been the most important ever in the development of both public policy and research on almost all issues relating to the scope of social policy, structure and welfare. It is easy to think of many major studies on, for example, income, wealth and poverty; on housing; on community care, and disability; on family and parenthood. The following datasets have recently been acquired and are available to use at Essex. Consultation is by appointment only and anyone wishing to consult the collections should contact QUALIDATA staff. The material is paper based but it is possible to obtain scanned machine-readable copies. Copyright is retained by depositor and authorized copies are permitted.

  Professor Peter Townsend's research collection

  Professor Peter Townsend was Professor of Sociology at the University between 1967 and 1981 and has pioneered research on poverty in Britain. Materials include:

  The Family Life of Old People

  Carried out in 1955 with the aim of investigating the basis for a growing perception that a breakdown in extended family networks was leaving old people isolated and creating an increasing demand for residential care. A series of interviews and weekly activity diaries was conducted with 203 people in their 60s and 70s in Bethnal Green.

  The Last Refuge

  A survey of residential accommodation for the elderly was carried out between 1958 and 1959 to show its development under the NHS and to determine the need for such accommodation. Complementary study to 'Family Life of Old People' where interviews were conducted with local authority welfare officers and matrons/wardens in 173 public and private institutions in England and Wales. Detailed notes on the buildings and facilities were made, and all residents who had entered within the four months prior to the researcher's visit were interviewed and their case records checked.

  St. Katharine's Buildings

  This consists of a set of unpublished interviews which Peter Townsend carried out in the 1950s in St Katherine's Building in Stepney, relating his findings to the ledger kept by Beatrice Webb and Ella Pyecroft as rent collectors in the same tenement from 1885- 1890. The original manuscript, held at LSE, contains their impressions, as female rent- collectors, of the place and the people. Peter Townsend returned to St. Katharine's Buildings to interview a cross-section of the present tenants, some of whom are descendants of the original inhabitants spanning 70 years, with the object of writing an essay on social change in this tiny segment of London.

  Child Poverty Action Group and the Disability Alliance Records

  The records of two pressure groups which Peter Townsend co-founded.

  Professor Dennis Marsden's work who carried out some of the earliest research on single parent families. The collection includes data from the studies:

  Mothers Alone: Poverty and the Fatherless Family

  A study of 116 fatherless families living on national assistance in two towns presents the experience of fatherlessness, dependence and poverty from the mother's viewpoint, carried out in 1965-1966.

  Workless: some Unemployed Men and their Families

  This study looked at the lives of 20 unemployed men from various employment backgrounds. The men were interviewed with their wives about work, their marriage and their daily routine between 1972-1975.

  Poverty in the UK Local Surveys

  An addition to Peter Townsend's studies of poverty among the 'sub-employed'.

  Forthcoming collections at Essex include:
  • Jacqueline Burgoyne's and David Clark's interviews for the first serious study of stepfamilies in Britain (Making a Go of It);
  • Charles Critcher's research of stress, coping and support networks in the context of pit closures and unemployment;
  • Annette Lawson's 1980s study of Adultery and more.

  A Note to Potential Depositors

  Researchers are asked to contact QUALIDATA as early as possible to discuss the archival potential of their data, preferably before any qualitative research has begun, and to consider depositing as soon as the first piece of substantive analysis has been written. The Centre organizes twice-yearly workshops to provide social science researchers with a forum for advice and exchange of experience on issues relating to archiving and re-analysis of qualitative research data. These workshops are intended to encourage the re-use of existing data and to address questions associated with archiving and preserving qualitative data. QUALIDATA staff also give talks to researchers and post-graduate students and in the future will be offering advice on the use of archives in research and training. Finally, the Centre hosts open days on demand to enable researchers to visit and discuss issues in relation to archiving.

  Louise Corti and Paul Thompson
  QUALIDATA, Department of Sociology, University of Essex

  Copyright Sociological Research Online, 1996