Re: NB4.5/NBW: Orbis or Ibid for ethnographical research project

["Mark Szuchman" <szuchman>]

David,
- From your description, I would recommend the use of NB Orbis because it
is especially well suited to note-taking of all sorts.  More than this,
I would suggest the creation of a template suited to the project's
specific functions and goals.  You could then enter the field notes in
this template. You could save each file with a consistent telltale
extension that would automatically index every file into the Orbis
database you would create for the project.

The field notes template in NBW's Ibidem comes as part of the Ibid Plus
the company has made available for free for a limited time.  I find
Orbis to act as a better alternative in that it is fully dedicated to
search and to retrieval.
Best,
Mark
On Sun, 12 Dec 1999 14:09:15 -0600 (CST), David Mackinder wrote:

>I have been asked by a friend to work as a research assistant. One of
>the projects he has in mind is a piece of fieldwork centred on a
>charismatic Christian group and involving participant observation and
>interviews. Assuming that access is granted by the group's leaders, he
>will do the fieldwork and I'll probably be responsible for transcribing
>his audio cassettes and overall text management.
>    I'm a long-time Nota Bene user, but I've previously used Ibid(em)
>exclusively for bibliographical work and have barely used Orbis (save as
>a contact manager).
>    I know that there was a sample IbidPlus fieldnote database - how do
>Notabenieri of a sociological/anthropological/ethnographical bent rate
>this? Would it suffice? Or have you developed alternative templates
>using either Ibid or Orbis?
>    Alternatively, approaching this project from a non-NB direction, are
>there other software tools that suitably experienced list members would
>recommend? (I've got recent demos of Nudist and NVivo, and I've also
>seen EZ-text.)