For my ethnography, I chose to go to “In Your Ear!”, a record store with two locations in Boston. I went to the Commonwealth Ave location in order to observe the process people go through when looking for records. The reason I chose to do this is quite simple. It’s something I love to do, myself. I collect a lot of records and I have friends that do as well. I wanted to see how others went about their search for records versus how I went about mine.
To start, I headed over towards In Your Ear! on a Friday afternoon. I chose Friday because it fit my schedule best and the fact that it was the start of the weekend might mean more people would be at the store. First, I should describe the way the store is set up. It’s situated in the basement of the building it’s in, so right away you get that musty, record store feeling. The layout of the store is pretty basic. When you enter, on the left is the cash register and on the right are all of the records. Most of the records are stored in shelves against the walls, but in the center of the room there are also two shelves, back-to-back, also filled with records. Under many of these shelves are crates and boxes also filled with records. These crates are just sitting on the ground, so you need hunch down in order to look at them. The shelves on the wall and the shelves in the center form a path of sorts which loops around the store. This path gets cut off in some areas by stacks of records, which require you to squeeze through. Overall, the whole store feels somewhat cramped. The pathways between the different record shelves seem like they would be difficult to navigate on a particularly busy day.
When I arrived, there were five other people shopping in the store. There was a college-age couple, an older man probably in his late 40’s or early 50’s, and two males who, judging by their t-shirts, were Boston University students. I watched these shoppers make their way through the store. The couple followed the pathway all around the store stopping at numerous shelves, flipping through a few rows at each one. I shifted my attention to the older man and noticed that he stuck around the jazz section the whole time. He carefully flipped through each row on the shelf and once finished, crouched down and started going through the box underneath. Once he was finished, I asked him why he was only looking in the jazz section. He told me: “Jazz is all I collect. Wouldn’t know where to start with a lot of other genres.” I asked him if he’d like to try checking out different genres sometime and he said as long as he had a little guidance. Watching these people search around for records, it was quite clear which artifacts were important to the activity. First and foremost are the records themselves. The entire search is focused on finding the record that you want, or the record that you didn’t know you wanted until you saw it. Without the records, record stores would have no purpose. Other important artifacts include the boxes and shelves that house all of the records. These are what facilitate the flipping through of the records. The way they are arranged typically allows them to be flipped forwards so you can see the next record on the shelf. If there is enough space, it makes things easy to go through an entire row quickly. Lastly, there’s the record player behind the counter. If you ask, often times you are able to give the record you found a spin to make sure if plays ok or to see if it’s something you’ll actually like.
While looking for a record for myself, I heard the two students laughing about something. I looked over and saw one of them holding up one of the records on the shelf. I went over to investigate. The record was Super Chief by Count Basie, which has a pretty goofy illustration of him as a train on the cover. I asked them if it was a good record or not and they told me they didn’t know. The one on the left said: “I just grabbed this one because I liked the cover. I think I’m going to get it.” I asked whether they frequently picked records this way. “It’s a fun way to check out new music,” the second one said. Thinking about this and what the older man said gave me an interesting idea for the record store search. It would be interesting if you could devise a system to log all the records in a store. So when the records get priced, they all get entered into a system. Then this system could interface with either a computer or an app or some sort that could pick records for you to look for based on current inventory. You could give it a genre as input and then it would give you a list of maybe 5-10 records that fit your interest. Then you could hunt through the store in search of the one that looks the best.
I see both the negatives and positives of having an inventory system like that. For some people I feel like it might ruin the spirit of the record store and digging through the crates. But I think that’s fine as no one would be forced to use it. There are far more positive things that it brings to the table. It could make shoppers’ trips to the record store more interesting, help with inventory, and allow shoppers to look more efficiently for records they really want. For me, I often don’t have enough time to look through everything in one trip, so an app like this would enable me to check out more records during a single outing. Record stores are somewhat dying out, so I think it’s necessary that we use technology to help drum up more interest and patronage at local stores.
To start, I headed over towards In Your Ear! on a Friday afternoon. I chose Friday because it fit my schedule best and the fact that it was the start of the weekend might mean more people would be at the store. First, I should describe the way the store is set up. It’s situated in the basement of the building it’s in, so right away you get that musty, record store feeling. The layout of the store is pretty basic. When you enter, on the left is the cash register and on the right are all of the records. Most of the records are stored in shelves against the walls, but in the center of the room there are also two shelves, back-to-back, also filled with records. Under many of these shelves are crates and boxes also filled with records. These crates are just sitting on the ground, so you need hunch down in order to look at them. The shelves on the wall and the shelves in the center form a path of sorts which loops around the store. This path gets cut off in some areas by stacks of records, which require you to squeeze through. Overall, the whole store feels somewhat cramped. The pathways between the different record shelves seem like they would be difficult to navigate on a particularly busy day.
When I arrived, there were five other people shopping in the store. There was a college-age couple, an older man probably in his late 40’s or early 50’s, and two males who, judging by their t-shirts, were Boston University students. I watched these shoppers make their way through the store. The couple followed the pathway all around the store stopping at numerous shelves, flipping through a few rows at each one. I shifted my attention to the older man and noticed that he stuck around the jazz section the whole time. He carefully flipped through each row on the shelf and once finished, crouched down and started going through the box underneath. Once he was finished, I asked him why he was only looking in the jazz section. He told me: “Jazz is all I collect. Wouldn’t know where to start with a lot of other genres.” I asked him if he’d like to try checking out different genres sometime and he said as long as he had a little guidance. Watching these people search around for records, it was quite clear which artifacts were important to the activity. First and foremost are the records themselves. The entire search is focused on finding the record that you want, or the record that you didn’t know you wanted until you saw it. Without the records, record stores would have no purpose. Other important artifacts include the boxes and shelves that house all of the records. These are what facilitate the flipping through of the records. The way they are arranged typically allows them to be flipped forwards so you can see the next record on the shelf. If there is enough space, it makes things easy to go through an entire row quickly. Lastly, there’s the record player behind the counter. If you ask, often times you are able to give the record you found a spin to make sure if plays ok or to see if it’s something you’ll actually like.
While looking for a record for myself, I heard the two students laughing about something. I looked over and saw one of them holding up one of the records on the shelf. I went over to investigate. The record was Super Chief by Count Basie, which has a pretty goofy illustration of him as a train on the cover. I asked them if it was a good record or not and they told me they didn’t know. The one on the left said: “I just grabbed this one because I liked the cover. I think I’m going to get it.” I asked whether they frequently picked records this way. “It’s a fun way to check out new music,” the second one said. Thinking about this and what the older man said gave me an interesting idea for the record store search. It would be interesting if you could devise a system to log all the records in a store. So when the records get priced, they all get entered into a system. Then this system could interface with either a computer or an app or some sort that could pick records for you to look for based on current inventory. You could give it a genre as input and then it would give you a list of maybe 5-10 records that fit your interest. Then you could hunt through the store in search of the one that looks the best.
I see both the negatives and positives of having an inventory system like that. For some people I feel like it might ruin the spirit of the record store and digging through the crates. But I think that’s fine as no one would be forced to use it. There are far more positive things that it brings to the table. It could make shoppers’ trips to the record store more interesting, help with inventory, and allow shoppers to look more efficiently for records they really want. For me, I often don’t have enough time to look through everything in one trip, so an app like this would enable me to check out more records during a single outing. Record stores are somewhat dying out, so I think it’s necessary that we use technology to help drum up more interest and patronage at local stores.
General Layout of the store