Community Informatics in LIS: Research, Learning and Action Partnerships

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Community Informatics in LISResearch,
Learning and Action Partnerships
Ann Peterson Bishop (abishop_at_uiuc.edu) GSLIS,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Communi
ty Connections Advancing LIS Education and
Practice through Partnership ALISE, January 12,
2005 Acknowledgements NSF, IMLS
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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)

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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 Jo
urnal of Community Informatics http//ci-journal.
net/index.php Assn for Community Networking
http//www.afcn.org
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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

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How should we live together?

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

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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

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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?

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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.
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Service-Learning

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.
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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

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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 not merely 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
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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

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• 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

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

• Help Book Online
• A 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 2004
• A 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.

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• 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

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Why parents need Back-Up Solutions Parents know
that even the best planned child care
arrangements can 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
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• 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

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Paseo BoricuaCommunity Library Project
Connecting Community Informatics with the
Goals, values, and work of the Paseo Boricua
neighborhood
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Puerto Rican Cultural Center http//www.prcc-chg
o.org

• 30 years in Chicagos 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

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La Casita de Don Pedro

• Museum Simple house from Puerto Rico
• Built by HS students
• Cultural space Bomba dancing, artist fairs

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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

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Family Learning Center

• For young mothers to earn HS diplomas
• Provide daycare
• Supported by federal funds
• We learn about our culture, parenting skills

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Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos HS

• Alternative HS
• More comfortable
• Safer
• Small classroom settings and local projects
• Teachers care!

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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

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Andrés Figueroa CorderoCommunity Library
Information Center

• 3d World book collection (4000 vols.)
• Community tech center
• Posters, sculpture and art, childrens books
• Archives Newsletters, fliers, letters, pamphlets
• Never been cataloged

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What Brought Us TogetherProject 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

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What Brought Us TogetherWhos Involved

• Students from FLC and PRCC high school
• Neighborhood activists
• Faculty and students from UIs Graduate School of
  Library and Information Science
• Faculty and students from University of Illinois
  at Chicago, other universities
• Chicago Public Library

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What Brought Us TogetherStreet Academy

• Spring/Summer 2003 Weekend workshops
• Fall 2003 Began Street Academy
• Independent study credit for HS students
• 2 courses PB Community Librarianship Computing
• Met 930-430 on Saturdays in 2004

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What Brought Us TogetherHS 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

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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

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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

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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

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Family Reading Night

• Started learning about and planning
• Parents and kids come to PRCC and read childrens
  books with others
• Kids get used to reading, get closer to parents,
  enjoy reading

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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)

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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

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Resources

• Bishop, et al. (2004). Supporting community
  inquiry with digital resources. Journal of
  Digital Information, 5(3). http//jodi.ecs.soton.a
  c.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.com
• Day, 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.