Do it yourself. How to become an explorer of the local community? is a manual of cultural research and animation methods created with employees and activists of cultural centers in mind. The publication describes ten methods allowing the cultural centers to carry out a basic examination of the needs of their local communities. The methods are tailored to the specific ways in which these institutions operate and the abilities and competence of their staff. All the chosen methods were tested in cooperation with three cultural centers and were deployed by social researchers, sociologists and cultural animateurs, as well as the instructors and participants of activities at each center.

Cultural centers do not operate in a vacuum. Any socio-cultural activity takes place in the context of a social reality. One does not need to employ sociology experts to examine these realities; all we need are particular research methods, which can be used for independent exploration of social surroundings.