September 25, 2008
Posted in Civic Engagement Survey, Uncategorized at 9:08 pm by Nancy Kranich
Survey about Libraries and Civic Engagement
survey-civic-engagement-and-libraries-2008.doc
Tell us what your library is doing or would like to do
Members of ALA’s Civic Engagement Membership Initiative Group (MIG) need your help identifying civic engagement activities at your library. We want to showcase your activities at various conferences and in publications, as well as on our blog. We also want to know your interest in civic engagement activities, even if you are not currently involved in this arena.
Public, academic, school and special libraries are all undertaking exciting civic engagement activities. Please tell us about your efforts. Take a moment to fill out the questionnaire attached to this message and available on the ALA Civic Engagement blog at:
Return the questionnaire to Nancy Kranich, nancy.kranich@nyu.edu; fax 917-386-2515; 136 N. 7th Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904. We would like to hear from you on or before October 15, 2008.
We look forward to hearing about your activities and interests in civic engagement and reporting the results of this survey. Many thanks for your help.
–Nancy Kranich
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September 22, 2008
Posted in Programs of Interest at 12:59 pm by Nancy Kranich
Course Development Institute for Courses Using Student-Centered Discussion
The Interactivity Foundation is accepting applications from college faculty interested in exploring its approach to student-centered discussion and civically engaged education. The Foundation is a non-partisan non-profit devoted to greater citizen discussion and participation in the exploration and development of contrasting possibilities for future public policy. We are seeking 10-12 faculty to attend our 2009 Summer Institute to be held August 1-9, 2009, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Participants will learn, practice, and help to refine the discussion process we are developing for use in college classrooms and in broader public discussions. Faculty will receive a $5,000 honorarium for their participation, and the Foundation will cover the costs of travel, meals, and lodging.
Following the Summer Institute, faculty will be invited to submit proposals for courses to be taught in the spring of 2010 at the participants’ home institutions. Courses selected for funding will employ a student-centered discussion process to explore a range of perspectives on the course subject matter and its connection to civic life and public policy. When the courses begin, faculty will receive an additional $5,000 honoraria.
We are seeking faculty who are experimental and interdisciplinary and who wish to explore and develop different approaches to student-centered classroom discussion. We especially welcome faculty who view higher education within the context of active citizenship and who see deliberative discussion as a way to enhance student learning and connect the classroom to public life.
Interested faculty should submit a CV and a letter of interest which describes their experience and interest in student discussion, their approach to teaching, and which addresses our interest in developing innovative and collaborative discussion partners that can make creative contributions in developing courses and methods for student-centered discussion. Please email these application materials to the Interactivity Foundation at shively@interactivityfoundation.org by 10/24/08. Notifications of selections will be made by 1/9/08. For additional information, including a list of faculty and their funded courses from our prior Summer Institute, visit our website at http://www.interactivityfoundation.org/2009si.html.
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September 16, 2008
Posted in Community Informatics at 9:45 pm by Taylor
[cross-posted with minor changes from my personal blog with apologies to the one person who follows both. Sorry for cluttering up your RSS feed, @tacrain57!]
As I’ve mentioned before, I am very curious (but at the nascent stage) of thinking about the blurring lines between journalists and librarians. Certainly the two fields have much in common - information professionals whose institutions have to change dramatically because of technology, the glut of information, the increased ease for ordinary people to have an audience, and the growing ability for people to get information from other “non-information professionals”. (I check out the amazon reviews, send out a twitter asking for feedback, read blogs to make sense of emerging news stories, ichat with my brother-who works for Apple but frequents their user discussion list to find answers-when I’m having trouble with my computer, and send text messages to my husband when there are home maintenance issues during the day.)
Lately, I’ve been digging around one of my favorite citizen journalism web sites (also a Knight project) and am struck by how similar the language and offerings of the site are to what libraries do. Someday, I’ll write a journal article about this, but in the meantime, Here are some of my random thoughts…
Knight Citizen News Network is particularly relevant to the field of Community Informatics. They have created a “self help portal that guides ordinary citizens and traditional journalists in launching and responsibly operating community news and information site.” They further state, “Citizens like you can learn to use digital media in ways that enrich community, enhance public discourse, and enliven democracy as we know it.”
This site is rich with resources for librarians who want to help people in their community to become community reporters, find local metroblogs (see for example, Austin MetBlogs) or citizen media outlets, get funding to start a micro-local news service, make us of widgets like google maps, learning modules with online reports like “How to Survive and Thrive: A digital literacy guide for the information age“, stories from people who have a particular expertise (e.g., a backdoor biologist shares his photos and info on finding rare birds), information about fair use and copyright…the list goes on.
But more importantly, I don’t see anything on this site that could not also be done by “the other” information professionals - librarians. In fact the paragraph describing “Why support KCNN” sounds very much like it could be part of a library’s brochure about upcoming workshops:
Citizens like you can learn to use digital media in ways that enrich community, enhance public discourse, and enliven democracy as we know it.
Wouldn’t that be a great thing to learn at your local library? Use technology to increase your ability to participate in your community and learn it at the library?
The Rondo public library in St. Paul is doing just that!
Last Spring e-democracy invited me to Minneapolis/St. Paul to meet with several libraries and to keynote a regional library meeting. One of my favorite visits was to the Rondo Library which is housed in a low income neighborhood on the first floor of an apartment complex with over 90 apartments and 6 townhomes. E-democracy works closely with the library and with library users to provide in impressive array of E-democracy Online Tools Workshops.
Young people need only go downstairs to the library to take computer classes on how to upload video online, build a website and produce a podcast. Parents can learn how to use the e-democracy site to contribute their opinions, AND it’s a site that as become a trusted source for local politicians to monitor and use for making policy. But here’s what’s really impressive. These classes and many of the other activities it takes to make this program work are done by members of the community. When I was there to speak at their open house, a thirteen-year-old volunteer (actually, he might have been even younger) did the videotaping. Prior to the event, he taped residents talking about their concerns and ideas for the community and that video was uploaded online.
The official name of the library is Rondo Community Outreach Library, but it should be Rondo Community Engaged Library. Perhaps their tagline should be “the library of the people, for the people and by the people.”
What are some examples of libraries that are providing this kind of community portal - physical or virtual? How are libraries enabling citizens with digital media skills in order to build community?
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September 10, 2008
Posted in Community Informatics, Deliberate Listserv, Programs of Interest at 7:49 pm by Taylor
Earlier this week I wrote to the Deliberate discussion list and asked where the librarians were in the work being done by the Knight Commission on the information needs of communities in a democracy. I was happily proven wrong. Libraries are represented by TWO outstanding individuals. YEAH!
The commission met at Google earlier this week and a couple of people I know or follow on Twitter attended. Chris O’Brien, technology writer for the San Jose Mercury News attended and posted a blog about the meeting. He writes about how the constant onslaught of information makes it difficult to determine the accuracy of information. How do communities decide what information and what sources to trust? (hmm, sounds like an information literacy issue.) He poses two possible solutions.
One is to tap into the power of crowds to evaluate and rate the sources. He cites NewsTrust.net where news stories are evaluate by people who, over time build up a reputation and become trusted sources. In other words individuals rate news articles and other individuals rate the rating. Stories are rated based on: Recommendations, accuracy, balance, context, evidence, fairness, importance, information, sources, style, and trust.
The other possible solution he cites is to form intermediaries or editors that can establish themselves as “trust advisers” to people online. Hey, that sounds like a job for an information professional (i.e., librarian!) I told Chris that I was posting his story to the students in my UIUC Library and Info Sciences class, Community Engagement.
I’d love to see some librarians comment on his blog. See link to article below.
O’Brien: Communities need help finding information on the Web they can trust
Taylor
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