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Through collaborative writing, the authors reflect on ethnographic engagement and critique “research tourism,” that is, drop-in, quick-fix “fieldwork” in developing countries. We position ourselves not as researchers vis-à-vis researched, but as two scholars set between researchers and researched, sometimes in the role of researcher but also stepping inside the binary to limn the gap. Through a dialogue across disciplines and a co-labor of writing, we inquire into the negotiation of research relationships in local contexts and how those relationships are conveyed in the academy. Using collaborative writing as our method of inquiry, we gather insights about our own roles and the unspoken relationships and expectations of researchers and researched in countries such as India. This allows us to introduce a multi-dimensional perspective on experiences that are usually represented from the single point of view of the researcher. This article begins in the middle of things because that is where we are.

PurposeDespite a growth in demand that public libraries be accountable to citizen needs, basic research into the socio‐cultural context in which libraries operate, particularly cross‐culturally, is still needed. Durrance and Fisher have argued that libraries have too long relied on output measures to indicate library efficiency (and to justify funding) but that such measures do not reflect the social, cultural or other values actually held or gained by library users. This observation begs the question, what socio‐cultural functions do public libraries actually have? What values do they reinforce? What needs are met? How do public libraries fit into the larger social fabric of public and private institutions? And how might these functions vary from one society to another? This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe questions are similar in scope to those found in museum studies (for example, see the book series Museum Meanings edited by Eilean Hooper‐Greenhill and Flora Kaplan), but have been rarely applied to libraries. In an unusual research collaboration we explore these questions relying on both qualitative and quantitative methods to gauge some of the socio‐cultural functions of a public library in Japan.FindingsOf primary concern is the methodological problem of developing questions that draw out values and concepts of which the visitors themselves may not be explicitly aware. In this research the paper attempts to draw out not just the satisfaction levels of patrons, but to delineate something of the patrons' own conception of their public library. Studying a rather unusual library by Japanese standards, it is found that some patrons have responded to the particularly strong community focus of the library director.Originality/valueSocio‐cultural studies of the functions of libraries are rare. This study therefore can act as an exemplar for further international studies.

This essay discusses Internet reference works for Asian Studies. Internet reference works are difficult to delimit, since the new formats and functions of the Internet have created new genres. Subject guides and directories do not qualify as reference sources, but the characterization of other forms of information on the Internet is still vague. The standards for evaluating Internet sources are also still in flux. Nonetheless, using a rule of thumb definition, a select number of Internet resources for Asian Studies are reviewed.

In this report of research currently underway on libraries in the city of Pune, Maharashtra (India), the focus is on commercial, street-corner libraries. Using an ethnographic approach, this research explores the way these libraries function, and the values placed on reading by Pune's middle class library users. Commercial libraries seem to have occupied a niche not filled by the public libraries in Pune, that of providing current popular fiction and glossy magazines in convenient locations. The libraries have a variety of origins and motivations, but are typically run with only the most rudimentary of cataloging and shelving systems, and no reference functions at all. Patrons describe their reading activity as leisure, and name television viewing as the main alternative or competing activity.