Best practice and advice
Visitor Studies Group – a membership organisation that brings together those interested in visitor studies from a breadth of sectors with advice, support and training events
Citizens Advice have a useful guide to running focus groups (PDF, 0.7MB)
The Market Research Society have a best practice guide on research with vulnerable groups (PDF, 0.3MB)
Archive Service Accreditation defines current good practice and agreed standards and can be used as a tool to develop access to services to meet the standard.
Our Talking to your community section contains resources on community engagement, developing formal and informal learning experiences, and we also have advice on why volunteers are so important to archive services.
We also have case studies on the subject of audience development available to read.
Secondary data sources
National census data is available to view, or look at your Local Authority’s website to find your local Census profile data
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s national survey, ‘Taking Part’
Public Health data for England
Public Health data for Northern Ireland
Public Health data for Scotland
Tools
Office for National Statistics’ area profile tool
Postcode analysis using socio-demographics and deprivation levels
Online surveys using Googleforms, Surveymonkey, Snap surveys, or voting tools such as Mentimeter.