Community Informatics in LIS:

Research, Learning and Action Partnerships

Ann Peterson Bishop (abishop@uiuc.edu)

GSLIS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Community Connections: Advancing LIS Education and Practice through Partnership

ALISE, January 12, 2005

Acknowledgements: NSF, IMLS

Presentation Overview

Community Informatics Initiative at GSLIS: Research, service-learning, public engagement In the creation of community information systems Through creating and nurturing collaborative

inquiry/learning communities

Community consortia (Prairienet)

Paseo Boricua Street Academy in Community Librarianship (iLabs)

Community Informatics

Community Informatics (CI): Study and practice of enabling communities with information and communications technologies (ICTs)

CIRN (Community Informatics Research Network)

http://www.ciresearch.net/index.htm

Journal of Community Informatics

http://ci-journal.net/index.php

Assn for Community Networking http://www.afcn.org

Community Inquiry

Collaborative activity around creating knowledge that is connected to people's values, history, and lived experiences

Open-ended, democratic, participatory engagement

Bringing theory and action together in an experimental and critical manner

How should we live together?

“…the desire to make the entire social organism democratic, to extend democracy beyond its political expression.” --Jane Addams

How do we learn together?

”It is the democratic faith that [intelligence] is sufficiently general so that each individual has something to contribute, and the value of each contribution can be assessed only as it entered into the final pooled intelligence constituted by the contributions

of all."

--John Dewey

The CII Challenge

How do communities work to address their problems in actual practice?

What theory adequately accounts for the complexity and diversity of (distributed) collective practice?

What tools are needed to mediate work on concrete tasks within communities?

What is the most effective process for developing shared capacity in the form of knowledge, skills, & tools?

Public Engagement

Uniting people from all walks of life in identifying, investigating, and taking action on conditions that affect the well-being of local residents.

http://www.servicelearning.org/

“Service-learning combines service objectives with learning objectives with the intent that the activity change both the recipient and the provider of the service. This is accomplished by combining service tasks with structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content.”

Service-Learning

Participatory Action Research

Incorporate local knowledge held by marginalized groups

Gain the participation of marginalized groups in all stages

Build capacity and achieve constructive social outcomes

CI System Design

Design through use aims to respond to human needs by democratic processes. Through creation of content, contributions to interactive elements, and incorporation into practice, users are notmerely recipients of technology, but participate actively in its ongoing development.

“Every individual must be consulted in such a way, actively not passively, that he himself becomes a part of the process of authority.” --John Dewey, Democracy & Education

CII at GSLIS: Community Partnerships

Prairienet

http://www.prairienet.org

Community Inquiry Labs (iLabs)

v.2 http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/ilabs

v.3 http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu

Access ISP, email, mailing lists Computer labs set up in daycares, churches, community centers, through GSLIS class

Content Community web collection, calendar, special digital resources and applications

Consulting, Guiding, Coaching, Directing, Supporting, and Investigating Use of ICTs to achieve community goals!

Collaborative, community-wide “systems analysis”

Help Book OnlineA comprehensive searchable directory of over 1000 human services in Champaign county. Maintained by First Call for Help, Family Service of Champaign County

Parent Resource Guide 2004A collaborative project of the United Way of Champaign County Success By 6 Community and Family Support Work Group, The Urbana Free Library, Champaign Public Library and Champaign-Urbana Public Health District. This quick reference guide lists support and educational programs. Available as printable PDF file.

Collaborating to provide East Central Illinois with the area's most comprehensive online human services guide

Welcome to CUVolunteer.org!

CUVolunteer.org is a partnership among the Community Volunteer Center at the United Way of Champaign County, the Office of Volunteer Programs at the University of Illinois, and Prairienet.

Get Started Now! Volunteer Login & Registration Find an Opportunity Agency Login & Information

Why parents need Back-Up SolutionsParents know that even the best planned child care arrangementscan be disrupted from time to time.

Back-Up Solutions offers: * Daily vacancy information * Online universal forms for enrollment in childcare programs * Web access to a participating provider directory

Suite of open source software applications freely available (BB, blog, document center, syllabus, etc.) for people to create own interactive websites

350 site visits a day; 50 iLab sessions a day

6 GB of data transfer a month

302 iLabs created since Nov. 2003

Serving groups ranging in size from an individual to 68 members

Paseo BoricuaCommunity Library Project

Connecting…

Community Informatics

with the

Goals, values, and work of the Paseo Boricua neighborhood

Puerto Rican Cultural Center http://www.prcc-chgo.org

30 years in Chicago’s Paseo Boricua neighborhood

Philosophy of self-actualization and critical thought, self-determination, self-reliance

Galvanizes residents around local issues: cultural preservation, economic development, gang violence

Includes many affiliated organizations that help people “learn how to learn” about/in the community

La Casita de Don Pedro Museum: Simple house

from Puerto Rico Built by HS students Cultural space: Bomba

dancing, artist fairs

Café Teatro Batey Urbano Organized by college

students

Safe place for teens to meet and express themselves

Without fear of discrimination or violence

Poetry with a Purpose, neighborhood projects, homework help

Family Learning Center

For young mothers to earn HS diplomas

Provide daycare

Supported by federal funds

We learn about our culture, parenting skills

Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos HS

Alternative HS:

More comfortable

Safer

Small classroom settings and local projects

Teachers care!

Vida/SIDA Puerto Ricans in

Chicago affected disproportionately by AIDS

Local artist Luis Rosa painted mural

Education and prevention regarding AIDS

AIDS clinic also started

Andrés Figueroa CorderoCommunity Library & Information Center

3d World book collection (4000 vols.)

Community tech center

Posters, sculpture and art, children’s books

Archives: Newsletters, fliers, letters, pamphlets

Never been cataloged

What Brought Us Together:Project Goals (1/2003)

Create a community of learners University and community collaboration Each has something to learn and contribute

Learn how to mobilize neighborhood info and cultural resources and connect to civic engagement activities

Address digital divide

Enrich library and information science with experiences and knowledge of Paseo Boricua residents

What Brought Us Together:Who’s Involved

Students from FLC and PRCC high school

Neighborhood activists

Faculty and students from UI’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science

Faculty and students from University of Illinois at Chicago, other universities

Chicago Public Library

What Brought Us Together:Street Academy

Spring/Summer 2003: Weekend workshops

Fall 2003: Began Street Academy Independent study credit for HS students 2 courses: PB Community Librarianship; Computing

Met 9:30-4:30 on Saturdays in 2004

What Brought Us Together:HS Student Goals Earn high school diploma!

Gain marketable skills within workforce People skills: collaboration and presentation Technology skills Cataloging and other library skills

Create comfortable learning place in PRCC for everyone

Learn tolerance, openness to new cultural experiences, and community engagement

Planning for Grand Opening Students and volunteers will

be library staff

Developing policies Mission statement Collection policies Job descriptions

Planning services and programs

Learning management: Grant-writing Publicity

Cataloging Chose Dublin Core

metadata/fields (Creator, Title, etc.)

Flexible-can use for all collections

Meets current standards

Not all that hard!

Creating own online catalog for iLab

Web Gallery Digitize PRCC political

posters, murals, sculptures

Creating online gallery for PRCC website

Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos (1891-1965): President of PR National Party; 1st Latino Harvard grad; led Oct. 1, 1950 insurrection against US occupation

Family Reading Night

Started learning about and planning

Parents and kids come to PRCC and read children’s books with others

Kids get used to reading, get closer to parents, enjoy reading

Books to Prisoners Many families have loved

ones in prison

Learning about prison system and libraries

And ways to send books to prisoners

Lolita Lebrón:PR political prisoner (served 25 yrs. For attacking US House of Reps in 1954. Just served 6 months for civil disobedience in Vieques)

Summary

Community Informatics Initiative employs community partnerships to develop useful information systems

Prairienet and Community iLabs Open source and freely available Community outcomes emphasized

Barriers and issues for discussion Explaining what you do Negotiating goals, resources, practices, outcomes across

different organizations (think “events”) Teaching/Learning/Research Community action and development Local/Global use and impact

Resources

Bishop, et al. (2004). Supporting community inquiry with digital resources. Journal of Digital Information, 5(3). http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v05/i03/Bishop/Bishop, A. P., & Molina, A. (2004). Felicitaciones, Paseo Boricua! (cover story in the magazine Voice of Youth Activists) http://www.voya.comDay, Peter, & Schuler, D. (eds.) (2004). Community practice in the network society. NY: Routledge.Greenwood, Davydd J., & Levin, Morten. (1998). Introduction to action research: Social research for social change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Reardon, K. M. (1998). Participatory action research as service learning. In R. A. Rhoads and J. P. F. Howard, eds., Academic service learning: A pedagogy of action and reflection (pp. 57-64). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Whitmore, E. (ed.). (1998). Understanding and practicing participatory evaluation. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.