A comparison of two methods for studying emotional responses to archival work: Remote interviews and diaries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47989/ir30357585Keywords:
interviews, solicited diaries, emotions, archival workAbstract
Introduction. This paper reports on the use of two research methods to gather data from archivists on their emotional responses to archives and to document the experiences and emotions of archivists. It also draws on comments from the eight archivists who participated in both studies.
Method. The research involved semi-structured, hour-long virtual interviews; solicited diaries; and monthly check-ins and exit interviews with diary-keepers.
Analysis. The research team read, analysed, and coded the diary and interview data, as well as the notes from the check-in and exit interviews. We subjected the data to line-by-line analysis and coding. Emerging themes and patterns were identified and categorized, and interrelationships were then determined in an iterative and reflexive manner.
Results. The study identified four major distinctions between the two methods. First, the interviews provided deeper insights into significant events, while diaries reflected day-to-day documentation of micro-events and emotions. Second, the interview script focused on negative emotions, whereas diaries captured a broader range of emotions. Third, interviews provided a more distant temporal perspective on past events, while diaries were time-dependent,. Finally, power different imbalances were inherent within each methodological approach.
Conclusion. The use of different methods provided different insights into the emotional responses to archives and their causes as well as creating a different experience for the interviewees and diary-keepers.
References
Abedi, E. A. (2024). Internet-meditated phone interviews for remote educational research in the Global South during COVID-19: A researcher’s and participants experiential reflections. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2024.2421766
Adhabi, E., & Anozie, C. B. (2017). Literature review for the type of interview in qualitative research. International Journal of Education, 9(3), 86-97. https://doi.org/10.5296/ije.v9i3.11483
Allport, G. W. (1942). The use of personal documents in psychological science: Prepared for the Committee on Appraisal of Research. Social Science Research Council. https://doi.org/10.1037/11389-000
Arndt, H., & Rose, H. (2022). Capturing life as it is truly lived? Improving diary data in educational research. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 46(2), 175-186. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2022.2094360
Atkinson. P., & Silverman, D. (1997). Kundera’s Immortality: The interview society and the invention of self. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3), 304-325. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780049700300304
Arroyo-Ramírez, E. (2022). Radical empathy in the context of suspended grief: An affective web of mutual loss. Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.24242/jclis.v3i2.134
Baker, J. (2021). Reactivity, rationality, emotion and self-protection: Critical reflections on the use and potential choice and decision-making of diaries in research on higher education. In X. Cao & E. Henderson (Eds.), Exploring diary methods in higher education research (pp. 102-114). Routledge.
Bannell, K., & Sexton, A. (2024). Affect and rapid response collecting: Exploring the significance of emotion in UK archives’ COVID-19 collecting projects. Archives and Records, 45(2), 153–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2024.2351378
Barclay, L. J., & Kiefer, T. (2019). In the aftermath of unfair events: Understanding the differential effects of anxiety and anger. Journal of Management, 45(5), 1802–1829. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206317739107
Bartlett, R. (2012). Modifying the diary interview method to research the lives of people with dementia. Qualitative Health Research, 22(12), 1717–1726. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732312462240
Beal, D. J. (2011). Industrial/organizational psychology. In M. R. Mehl & T. S. Conner (Eds.), Handbook of research methods for studying daily life (pp. 601–619). Guilford.
Ben-Ari A., & Enosh G. (2011). Processes of reflectivity: Knowledge construction in qualitative research. Qualitative Social Work, 10, 152–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325010369024
Bolger, N., Davis, A., & Rafaeli, E. (2003). Diary methods: Capturing life as it is lived. Annual Review of Psychology, 54(1), 579–616. https://doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145030
Bono, J. E., Foldes, H. J., Vinson, G., & Muros, J. P. (2007). Workplace emotions: The role of supervision and leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(5), 1357-1367. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.5.1357
Burford, J. (2021). Closer to the feeling: Exploring diary-methods for higher education research on affective phenomena. In X. Cao & E. Henderson (Eds.), Exploring diary methods in higher education research (pp. 161-174). Routledge.
Carby, H. (2021, July 21). The National Archives. Invisible Culture: A Journal of Visual Culture. https://doi.org/10.47761/494a02f6.2441d1b4
Caswell, M. (2020). Feeling liberatory memory work: On the archival uses of joy and anger. Archivaria 90, 148-164. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/775285
Chiumento, A., Machin, L., Rahman, A., & Frith, L. (2018). Online interviewing with interpreters in humanitarian contexts. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2018.1444887
Cifor, M., & Gilliland, A. J. (2016). Affect and the archive, archives and their affects: An introduction to the special issue. Archival Science 16, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-015-9263-3
Cao, X., & Henderson, E. (2021). The interweaving of diaries and lives: Diary-keeping behaviour in a diary-interview study of international students’ employability management. Qualitative Research, 21(6), 829-845. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794120920260
Cao, X. (2021). Researcher–participant ‘win–win’ in diary research: Participant recruitment and retention in a longitudinal diary-interview study on employability management. In X. Cao & E. Henderson (Eds.), Exploring diary methods in higher education research (pp. 73-86). Routledge.
Clarkson, G. P., & Hodgkinson, G. P. (2007). What can occupational stress diaries achieve that questionnaires can't? Personnel Review, 36(5), 684–700. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480710773990
Colosimo, A. L., & Badia, G. (2021). Diaries of lifelong learners: Information seeking behaviors of older adults in peer-learning study groups at an academic institution. Library & Information Science Research. 43(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2021.101102
deMarrais, K., & Tisdale, K. (2002). What happens when researchers inquire into difficult emotions?: Reflections on studying women’s anger through qualitative interviews. Educational Psychologist, 37(2), 115–123. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410608628
DiMenichi, B. C., Ceceli, A. O., Bhanji, J. P., & Tricomi, E. (2019). Effects of expressive writing on neural processing during learning. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13, 389–389. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00389
DiMenichi, B. C., & Richmond, L. L. (2015). Reflecting on past failures leads to increased perseverance and sustained attention. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 27(2). https://doi:10.1080/20445911.2014.995104
Dodds, S., & Hess, A. C. (2020). Adapting research methodology during COVID-19: Lessons for transformative service research. Journal of Service Management, 32(2), 203–217. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-05-2020-0153
Douglas. J., & Alisauskas, A. (2021). ‘It feels like a life’s work’: Recordkeeping as an act of love. Archivaria, 91, 6-37. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13785
Douglas, J., Alisauskas, A., & Mordell, D. (2019). “Treat them with the reverence of archivists”: Records work, grief work, and relationship work in the archives. Archivaria, 88, 84-120. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13785
Douglas, J., Alisauskas, A., Bassett, E., Duranseaud, N., Lee, T., & Mantey, C. (2022). ‘These are not just pieces of paper’: Acknowledging grief and other emotions in pursuit of person-centred archives. Archives & Manuscripts, 50(1), 5-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.37683/asa.v50.10211
Duff, W. M. (2005). Beyond name-collecting: PhD students information seeking behaviour in physical and virtual archives. Comma, 3, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3828/coma.2005.3.10
Duff, W. M., Monks-Leeson, E., & Galey, A. (2012). Contexts built and found: A pilot study on the process of archival meaning-making. Archival Science, 12(1), 69-92. https://doi:10.1007/s10502-011-9145-2
Duff, W., Ho J., Deziak P. V., Aton, H., Sato C., & Regehr C. (2024). Redefining archival reference: A relationship-based reference. American Archivist. 87 (1), 107–130. https://www.doi.org/10.17723/2327-9702-87.1.107
Edwards, R., & Holland, J. (2013). What is qualitative interviewing? Bloomsbury Academic.
Felsher, M., Wiehe, S. E., Gunn J. K. L., & Roth, A. M. (2018). ‘I got it off my chest’: An examination of how research participation improved the mental health of women engaging in transactional sex. Community Mental Health Journal, 54(2), 171–179. https://doi:10.1007/s10597-017-0094-y
Filep, C. V., Turner, S., Eidse, N., Thompson-Fawcett, M., & Fitzsimons, S. (2017). Advancing rigour in solicited diary research. Qualitative Research, 18(4), 451-470. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794117728411
Figley, C. R. (1995). Compassion fatigue as secondary traumatic stress disorder: An overview. In C. R. Figley (Ed.), Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized (pp. 1-20). Brunner/Rouledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203777381
Fisher, C. D., & To, M. L (2012). Using experience sampling methodology in organizational behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(7), 865–877. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1803
Flannery, E., Peters, K., Murphy, G., Halcomb, E., & Ramjan, L. M. (2023). Bringing trauma home: Reflections on interviewing survivors of trauma while working from home. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 22, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940692311754
Fontana, A., & Frey, J. H. (2000). The interview: From structured questions to negotiated text. In N. K. Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 645-672). Sage.
Gawley, T. (2018). Using solicited written qualitative diaries to develop conceptual understandings of sleep: Methodological reviews and insights from the accounts of university lives. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406918794255
Gilliland, A. (2014). Moving past: Probing the agency and affect of recordkeeping in individual and community lives in post-conflict Croatia. Archival Science, 14, 249–274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-014-9231-3
Gubrium, J. F., & Holstein, J. A. (1998). Narrative practice and the coherence of personal stories. The Sociological Quarterly, 39(1), 163-187. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1998.tb02354.x
Herron, R., Dansereau, L., Wrathall, M., Funk, L., & Spencer, D. (2019). Using a flexible diary method rigorously and sensitively with family carers. Qualitative Health Research, 29(7), 1004-1015. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732318816081
Holman, D. (2016). How does customer affiliative behaviour shape the outcomes of employee emotion regulation? A daily diary study of supermarket checkout operators. Human Relations, 69(5), 1139-1162. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726715600230
Howlett, M. (2022). Looking at the ‘field’ through a Zoom lens: Methodological reflections on conducting online research during a global pandemic. Qualitative Research, 22(3), 387-402. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794120985691
Hyers, L. L. (2018). Diary data collection as a qualitative research method. In L.L. Hyers (Ed.) Diary methods: Understanding qualitative research (pp. 27-60). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190256692.003.0002
Hyers, L. L., & Walmer, J. (2021). Afterward: Ensuring the continued success of diary research in higher education. In X. Cao & E. Henderson (Eds.), Exploring diary methods in higher education research (pp. 190-200). Routledge.
Irvine, A., Drew, P., & Sainsbury, R. (2013). ‘Am I not answering your questions properly?’ Clarification, adequacy and responsiveness in semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews. Qualitative Research, 13(1), 87 106. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112439086
J̈ackle, A., Roberts, C., & Lynn, P. (2006). Telephone versus face-to-face interviewing: mode effects on data quality and likely causes: Reports on phase II of the ESS-Gallup mixed mode methodology project. Institute for Social and Economic Research.
Keen, S., Lomeli-Rodriguez, M., & Joffe, H. (2022). From challenge to opportunity: Virtual qualitative research during COVID-19 and beyond. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069221105075
Kenten, C. (2010). Narrating oneself: Reflections on the use of solicited diaries with diary interviews. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 11(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-11.2.1314
Klein, K., & Boals, A. (2001). Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(3), 520–533. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.130.3.520
Kuhlthau, C. C. (1991). Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user's perspective. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42, 361-371. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199106)42:5<361::AID-ASI6>3.0.CO;2-%23
Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Sage.
Lapin, J. (2022). Two archival cannons. Archives and Records, 43(2), 180-187. https://doi:10.1080/23257962.2022.2051457
Laurent, N., & Wright, K. (2023). Understanding the international landscape of trauma and archives: Report, 2023. International Council on Archives. https://www.ica.org/resource/understanding-the-international-landscape-of-trauma-and-archives-report/ (Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20240304183858/https://www.ica.org/resource/understanding-the-international-landscape-of-trauma-and-archives-report/ )
Linabary, J. R., & Hamel, S. A. (2017). Feminist online interviewing: Engaging issues of power, resistance and reflexivity in practice. Feminist Review, 115(1), 97-113. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41305-017-0041-3
Lobe, B., Morgan, D. L., & Hoffman, K. (2022). A systematic comparison of in-person and video-based online interviewing. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069221127068
Mas, S., & Gagnon-Arguin, L. (2010). Considérations sur la dimension émotive des documents d'archives dans la pratique archivistique: La perception des archivistes. Archives, 42(2), 53-64. https://www.archivistes.qc.ca/revuearchives/vol42_2/42_2_mas_gagnon-arguin.pdf
Matta, F. K., Erol‐Korkmaz, H. T., Johnson, R. E., & Biçaksiz, P. (2014). Significant work events and counterproductive work behavior: The role of fairness, emotions, and emotion regulation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(7), 920–944. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1934
Matteson, M. L., Chittock, S., & Mease, D. (2015). In their own words: Stories of emotional labor from the library workforce. The Library Quarterly, 85(1), 85–105. https://doi.org/10.1086/679027
McCallum, M. J. L. (2018, June 21). Indigenous people, archives and history [blog]. Shekon Neechie https://shekonneechie.ca/2018/06/21/indigenous-people-archives-and-history/ (Archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20190620022230/https://shekonneechie.ca/2018/06/21/indigenous-people-archives-and-history/ )
McCracken, G. (1988). The long interview. Sage Publications.
McCracken, G . (2012). The long interview. Sage Publications.
McCracken, K., & Hogan-Stacey, S. S. (2023). Decolonial archival futures. American Library Association Neal-Schuman
Melssen, M. (2012). Evidence from students’ information seeking diaries underscores the importance of including librarians in undergraduate education. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 7(4), 111–113. https://doi.org/10.18438/B8461F
Meth, P. (2003). Entries and omissions: Using solicited diaries in geographical research. Area 35(2): 195–205. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-4762.00263
Murphy, F. (2011). Archives of sorrow: An exploration of Australia’s stolen generations and their journey into the past. History and Anthropology, 22(4), 481–495. https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2011.626775
Nathan, L. P., Shaffer, E., & Castor, M. (2015). Stewarding collections of trauma: Plurality, responsibility, and questions of action. Archivaria, 80, 89-118. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13545 (Archived at http:// https://web.archive.org/web/20191125161725/https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13545 )
O’Quinn, J., Slaymaker, E., & Goldstein-Kral, J. (2024). Sociology from a distance: Remote interviews and feminist methods. Qualitative Sociology, 47, 43–67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-024-09556-y
Pennebaker, J. W., & Chung, C. K. (2007). Expressive writing, emotional upheavals, and health. In H. S. Friedman & R. C. Silver (Eds.), Foundations of health psychology (pp. 263–285). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617707315
Plummer, K. (2001). Documents of life: An introduction to the problems and literature of a humanistic method (2nd ed.). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849208888
Poppleton, S., Briner, R. B., & Kiefer, T. (2008). The roles of context and everyday experience in understanding work-non-work relationships: A qualitative diary study of white- and blue-collar workers. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81(3), 481–502. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317908X295182
Portoghese, I., Galletta, M., Leiter, M. P., Cocco, P., D’Aloja, E., & Campagna, M. (2017). Fear of future violence at work and job burnout: A diary study on the role of psychological violence and job control. Burnout Research, 7, 36–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burn.2017.11.003
Punzalan, R. (2009). “All the things we cannot articulate’: Colonial leprosy archives and community commemoration. In: J. A. Bastian & B. Alexander (Eds.), Community archives: The shaping of memory (pp 199–219). Facet.
Regehr, C., Duff, W., Ho, J., Sato, C., & Aton, H. (2023). Emotional responses in archival work. Archival Science, 23, 545–568. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-023-09419-5
Regehr, C., Duff, W., Aton, H., & Sato, C. (2022). “Humans and records are entangled”: Empathic engagement and emotional response in archivists. Archival Science, 22, 563–583. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-022-09392-5
Reis, H. T. (1994). Domains of experience: Investigating relationship processes from three perspectives. In R. G. R. Erber (Ed.), Theoretical frameworks in personal relationships (pp. 87–110). L Erlbaum Associates. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203772065
Roberts, J. K., Pavlakis, A. E., & Richards, M. P. (2021). It’s more complicated than it seems: Virtual qualitative research in the COVID-19 era. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211002959
Rodríguez-Muñoz, A., Antino, M., León-Pérez, J. M., & Ruiz-Zorrilla, P. (2020). Workplace bullying, emotional exhaustion, and partner social undermining: A weekly diary study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(5-6), NP3650-NP3666. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520933031
Sexton, A. (2019). Working with traumatic records: How should we train, prepare and support recordkeepers? Paper presented at the Archival Education and Research Institute, 8–12 July, Liverpool, U.K.
Sexton, A. (2025). Introducing the legacies and trajectories of trauma to the archival field. Archival Science, 25(3). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-024-09471-9
Silverman D. (1993). Interpreting qualitative data: Strategies for analysing talk, text and interaction. Sage.
Sonnentag, S., Mojza, E. J., Binnewies, C., & Scholl, A. (2008). Being engaged at work and detached at home: A week-level study on work engagement, psychological detachment, and affect. Work and Stress, 22(3), 257–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678370802379440
Sloan, K., Vanderfluit, J., & Douglas, J. (2019). Not 'just my problem to handle': Emerging themes on secondary trauma and archivists. Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies, 6, 20. https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=jcas
Spowart, L., & Nairn, K. (2014). (Re)performing emotions in diary-interviews. Qualitative Research, 14(3), 327-340. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112473498
Strauss A., Corbin J. (1998) Basics of qualitative research techniques. Sage Publications,
Sy, M., O’Leary, N., Nagraj, S., El-Awaisi, A., O’Carroll, V., & Xyrichis, A. (2020). Doing interprofessional research in the COVID-19 era: A discussion paper. Journal of Interprofessional Care. https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2020.1791808
Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1927). The Polish peasant in Europe and America. Knopf.
Thomassin, K., Morelen, D., & Suveg, C. (2012). Emotion reporting using electronic diaries reduces anxiety symptoms in girls with emotion dysregulation. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 42(4), 207–213. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-012-9205-9
Thurnberg, S., & Arnell, L. (2021). Pioneering the use of technologies in qualitative research: A research review of digital interviews. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 25(6), 757-768. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2021.1935565
Toms, E. G., & Duff, W. (2002). ‘I spent 1 1/2 hours sifting through one large box....’: Diaries as information behavior of the archives user: Lessons learned. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(14), 1232 – 1238. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.10165
Tschan, F., Rochat, S., & Zapf, D. (2005). It’s not only clients: Studying emotion work with clients and co-workers with an event-sampling approach. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 78(2), 195–220. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317905X39666
Weiss, R. S. (1994). Learning from strangers: The art and methods of qualitative interview studies. The Free Press.
Wettergren, A. (2015). How do we know what they feel? In H. Flam & J. Kleres (Eds.), Methods of exploring emotions (pp. 115-124). Routledge.
Wright, K., & Laurent, N. (2021). Safety, collaboration, and empowerment: Trauma-informed archival practice. Archivaria 91, 38-73. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13787 (Archived at http:// https://web.archive.org/web/20210927103327/https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13787 )
Zimmerman, D. H., & Wieder, D. L. (1977). The diary: Diary-interview method. Urban Life, 5(4), 479-498. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124167700500406
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Wendy Duff, Jessica Ho, Connor White, Christa Sato, Cheryl Regehr, Henria Aton
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
