I am in my fatherly role right now, my daughter has to do an assignment on the Ethnography of Infrastructure. Not having been involved in information systems I'm thinking that what they are after is the basic roots of the system. So, she is looking at ERIC, the Educational Research database which houses articles, journals and such.

Metaphorically, I was thinking that if the whole internet were considered to be an apartment building, ERIC would be an apartment within it, and the journals, articles, etc, would represent rooms in the apartment. If correct, one may even find that different floors within the apartment might be classed as significant. So, if she were to analyze the infrastructure of ERIC, she would have to breakdown the components that are searchable and outline what these points are ...... close or am I a dinosaur in this.

Any help would be appreciated.

A very unique metaphor, Rp. If you consider infrastructure as a fundamentally relational concept, this metaphor will work. You could go about studying the development of various sub-sets and categories (i.e., floors and levels) as part of the ERIC information infrastructure. If you accept the definition that thnographers are trained to understand various viewpoints to help create some workable definition of the situation or structure, then your metaphor works well. It would appear that these are important strengths for understanding the eclectic array of changes being brought about, and presented to us, by our current state of information technology. Granted, traditionally, fieldwork and transaction logs are the bread and butter of many ethnographers, utilizing qualitative and naturalistic investigative methods (e.g., in-depth interviews). While you can't do this with an entity like ERIC, you might be able to generalize about this form of data sharing.

Is this helpful in any way?

Yes Dr. G it is very helpful. I am currently reading an article by Susan Leigh Star on the Ethnography of Infrastructure. It would appear that it is a simple concept made confusing by the use of academic jargon. How ever if you take the time you can see her point, such as using the telephone book or yellow pages as in instrument to see cultural and social changes. An example would be the listing of Gay and Lesbian Pride Parades in the coming events, unheard of years ago.