Doing research in the analog 20th century - a lifetime ago?
Short introduction to my white paper that documents how technologies during my PhD were vastly different from what we now take for granted
When reviewing some of my archives, I rediscovered the bi-monthly “PhD newsletters” that I had sent to my supervisors and the letters and emails we had exchanged at the time, the mid 1990s. The advantage of not being co-located with my supervisors and not having access to virtual meetings, frequent travel, or international phone calls is that I built up a complete paper record of my reflections and decisions during my PhD.
Rereading this after more than thirty years, even I – who didn’t use a personal computer until I was 23 – was struck at how different doing research in those analog times was. Yes, our LPs and music cassettes had been gradually replaced by CDs by the mid 1990s as both CD players and CDs became more affordable, but at work technology was still in its very early infancy.
So, I decided to write up a white paper on this, documenting this era before most of us have completely forgotten it. I hope that for older researchers this white paper brings back (good) memories. For younger researchers it might serve to illustrate that even though research is hugely challenging these days, it was by no means a piece of cake in the “good old days” either.
In my white paper, I discuss how these analog times materialized in communicating with colleagues, sourcing of relevant literature, tracking down respondents’ contact details, designing a mail survey, and coping with limited access to referencing and payment technologies. Before doing so, however, I am setting the scene by discussing major technological developments in the decade before my PhD.
Intrigued? You can read the full story here: Doing research in an analog time.
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Copyright © 2026 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Wed 20 May 2026 09:08
Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.
