Hi all, it is great to see iSchool members on that list! And yes, I can confirm: we do Internet studies. I am working on my phd at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin and my work has a lot do with Internet studies. And... I am stuck. I am working on how to collect purposeful data in digital library evaluations. Sure, there are multiple factors that influence the quality of the data. One of them is the use of an appropriate method. Currently, researchers of digital libraries mostly do surveys and logfiles. Both methods met the user where he is: online. All other methods - interviews, focus groups, usability thinking aloud tests etc - are done "offline" that means in a local environment (for example in the institution who does the study). My question is whether this produces representative data? Can I take users which are locally available (for example users in my Berlin library) but who may not be the actual users of the worldwide accessible digital library? If I want to know what my (real) users need in future development and I only ask my Berlin users, what is the data's informative value? I know that some internet anthropologist say that with internet studys we no longer can make the distinction between aged and young, masculine and female - the old standard criteria for a representative sample - but instead that the real differences in online communities lay in the cultures: do my users use social networks, are they night- or day-workers, what is their social background: would they ask for help etc. In that sense being representative means that one has all (cultural) user types be present in a sampling. This implies that the question is not where the study takes place - offline or online - , it matters whether all "user cultures" are present. Does anyone on that list knows a paper that supports these thoughts or can help me with an idea what indicators I could use to prove it? Thanks for all the great input I already received on that list. Every help comment on that topic would be more than welcome! Best wishes Elke -- Elke Greifeneder Lecturer Berlin School of Library and Information Science Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Associate Editor Library Hi Tech - Emerald