Last July, Nancy Kranich, Joanne Griffin and Holly Sorenson presented a program at ALA Annual for the Association of College & Research Libraries Division. Somehow we neglected to post the podcast of their presentation that is now available for those who were unable to attend. Below is the e-mail message from Chad Kahl with the access information.
Enjoy!
From: Kahl, Chad
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 10:41 AM
Subject: 2009 LPSS ALA Annual Conference program follow-up message
I would like to thank you again for attending the 2009 Law and Political
Science Section ALA Annual Conference program, “Political Engagement:
Facilitating Greater Participation in Civil Society” featuring Elizabeth
Hollander, Nancy Kranich, Joanne Griffin and Holly Sorensen.
I am pleased to let you know that the program podcast is now available,
thanks to the work of program planning committee member, Amalia Monroe,
and David Free, a Marketing and Communication Specialist for the
Association of College & Research Libraries. It can be accessed at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/podcasts/lpssac09.mp
3.
Based on feedback from your program evaluations, we revised the
bibliography/pathfinder so it now includes speaker biographies and a
number of resources recommended by the speakers. It is available
directly at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/about/sections/lpss/bibliography2
009.pdf, as well as the aforementioned web page.
Thank you,
Chad Kahl, on behalf of the LPSS 2009 ALA Annual Conference Program
Planning Committee
Association of Research Libraries. Public Engagement, SPEC Kit 312, Published by ARL http://www.arl.org/news/pr/speckit312.shtml
by Scott Walter and Lori Goetsch • September 2009 • ISBN 1-59407-824-6 • 126 pp. • $45 ($35 ARL members)
Here’s text from ARL’s August 31, 2009 press release…
“The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published Public Engagement, SPEC Kit 312, which explores the ways in which traditional “outreach” programs in academic libraries are evolving to address the emergent concept of “public engagement” at the institutional level and the degree to which the library is integrated into campus-level efforts to promote public engagement.
By the March deadline, responses had been submitted by 56 of 123 ARL member libraries for a response rate of 46%. For the purposes of this survey, respondents were asked to report on “public engagement programs” that met the definition of those that demonstrate the library’s “commitment to community partnerships, service to professional communities outside [your] primary user groups … . [and that] go beyond the ‘provision of institutional resources for community use,’ and are aimed at bringing the professional expertise of the library to members of the public.” Of the 56 responding libraries, 49 (88%) reported providing such programs as part of their service profile.
Respondents identified a wide variety of programs that they characterize as “public engagement.” The top four areas of library activity reported were programs in the areas of K-12 education (80%), cultural engagement (75%), government information/e-government (68%), and lifelong learning (66%)…..”
The Knight Commission released its report Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age on Friday, October 2, 2009. The Report and Discussion are available at: http://www.report.knightcomm.org/.Knight encourages participation in the national dialogue on the Commission’s recommendations by discussing the report and joining the Healthy Community Forum.
The Report includes three categories of findings and recommendations:
1.Maximizing the Availability of Relevant and Credible Information 2.Enhancing the Information Capacity of Individuals 3.Promoting Public Engagement
According to the Commission, “The questions America faces at this point in its information history, however, gobeyond questions of strategy to questions of values. The Knight Commission hasrecommended a series of strategies that, in various ways, exhort our major publicand nonprofit institutions to give new priority to values of openness, inclusion,and engagement. The values questions posed are equally profound, however, for individual citizens and for the institutions of the media.”
The commission’s recommendation regarding libraries, include:
America’s libraries need sufficient funding to serve as centers for information, training, and civic dialogue. Public libraries are located in nearly all communities in the United States. Most of them are wired for Internet service. Nearly all offer public Internet, and almost three quarters are the only providers of free public computer and Internet access in their communities.
Local Governments Leading the Way in Developing New Forms of Civic Engagement
August 28, 2009
PACE , Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement and the National Civic League have teamed up to publish a special issue of the National Civic Review (NCR) on cutting edge forms of dialog, deliberation and public decision-making at the local government level.
Currently in its 98th year of publication, NCR is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious journals of civic affairs. Its audience includes mayors, city managers, community activists, academics and leaders within the nonprofit sector.
Released this week, “The New Laboratories of Democracy: How Local Government is Reinventing Civic Engagement” features essays, interviews, and case studies on cutting edge practices by villages, towns, cities and counties in the field of public participation and how nonprofits and foundations are aiding and assisting those efforts.
“Publication of the special NCR issue is particularly timely,” noted PACE Executive Director Christopher T. Gates. “The raucous debate over health care reform is a reminder of how difficult it is to deliberate on complex public policy issues in an environment of distrust and polarization, a lesson many local officials learned in the early 1990s when budgets were tightening and public skepticism about the role of government was growing.”
Not long ago, the main vehicle for local participation was the public hearing, an often frustrating and unsatisfactory means of engaging the community. “That began to change about 15 years ago,” added Gates, “when public managers and elected officials started looking for new and better forms of engagement so they could move forward on tough local challenges. The many examples of community success suggest that local government has become an important source of innovation and activity.”
What factors led to this flurry of experimentation? What forms did these new methods take? What have we learned about these new approaches? How do public officials ensure these new ways of doing civic engagement avoid the old trap of offering only the “illusion of inclusion?” And how will technology change the way citizens come together to solve problems?
These are a few of the questions raised and explored in a white paper issued by PACE in May. This special NCR issue includes examples, insights and recommendations contained in the earlier report as well as essays by leaders of public sector associations such as the International City/County Management Association and the National League of Cities, on-the-ground reports from practitioners and advocates of civic engagement who work in communities, and “lessons learned” from local government managers who work with neighborhood groups and public forums.
“We are very excited to publish this special issue with PACE,” says Gloria Rubio-Cortés, President of the National Civic League. “It explores from a number of new angles questions that are right at the center of our mission: how do we make democracy more inclusive and how do we tap the under-used resource of public knowledge and common wisdom.”
To receive a complimentary print edition of this issue (NCR 98:2), contact Kristin Seavey, kristins@ncl.org.
ALA and the library community have encouraged citizen participation in the political process for many years. Here’s a great article by Jean Preer talking about the role of libraries in the 1952 Presidential election.
Preer, Jean L ,
“Promoting Citizenship: How Librarians Helped Get Out the Vote in the 1952 Presidential Election,”
Libraries & the Cultural Record 43 no1 1-28 2008
Abstract:
In 1952 the American Library Association joined an array of nonprofit organizations, corporations, and the media in the National Non-Partisan Register and Vote Campaign to increase citizen participation in the electoral process. With ALA providing technical support and encouragement, librarians all over the country promoted reading, organized discussion groups, mounted exhibits, and sponsored programs to draw informed voters to the polls. ALA’s participation in the Register and Vote Campaign highlighted the role of the public library in providing quality information on candidates and issues. Librarians demonstrated that libraries could serve as local information centers, working with nonprofit organizations, the commercial sector, and the broadcast media to reach out to the whole community to create an informed citizenry.
“PACE Releases Guide on Deliberative Democracy and Democratic Governance”
April 30, 2009
As the philanthropic community grapples with the question of how to support innovative and effective forms of democratic governance, PACE (Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement) has released a guide that provides a detailed description of how local civic engagement has grown and developed over the past decade.
“As more and more foundations are making civic engagement a part of their funding priorities, they are also being presented with a whole new set of approaches and tools for engaging citizens at the local level,” says Chris Gates, the Executive Director of PACE, ‘This guide is an attempt to demystify the emerging field of deliberative democracy and help funders make more informed decisions about their support of this growing field.”
“Perhaps the most significant—and overlooked—recent development in the health of local democracy is the shift in citizen expectations, capacities and attitudes toward government,” argues Matt Leighninger, the director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and the author of this guide. “This guide illustrates how this shift is affecting public officials, foundations and nonprofit organizations, and how it has provoked a new generation of efforts to make local politics and local governance more participatory, deliberative and productive.”
The guide provides a list of some of the main organizations working in this field, describes some of the most influential models and processes, and provides examples of particularly significant democratic governance efforts. It also outlines some of the cutting-edge questions facing the field and provides a long list of resources to consult.
An electronic version of the guide is attached and we encourage you to share and forward.
PACE is an affinity group of the Council on Foundations, founded in 2005 to bring new philanthropic focus to the issues of civic engagement and democratic renewal.
For more information contact Chris Gates, Executive Director of PACE, at cgates@pacefunders.org or the author of the guide, Matt Leighninger, at mattleighninger@earthlink.net .
[From Philanthropy News Digest, January 24, 2009 Note the emphasis on “innovative activities designed to engage library users”. Also note the economic return that the library provides to the community!]
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh needs to explore new ways to meet its serious funding challenges, engage patrons and other stakeholders, and evaluate the services it offers, a new report from RAND Education finds.
Funded by the Eden Hall Foundation, the report, Assessing the Future of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh: Pathways to Sustainability (85 pages, PDF), outlines nine opportunities for the library and its stakeholders to pursue, including expanding innovative activities designed to engage library users; rigorously assessing the number and size of services and programs it offers; evaluating ways to leverage more benefits from existing resources, including technology, volunteers, and strategic partners; and the benefits and tradeoffs of a county-wide merger with the forty-four independent libraries in Allegheny County.
A study by the Carnegie Mellon University Center for Economic Development found that the library generates more than $132 million in combined economic return and estimated value to Allegheny County, sustains more than seven hundred jobs, and provides an economic benefit of $3 for every $1 it spends. But since the state cut funding for the library in 2002, it has had to juggle days and times of operation at its nineteen locations, even as circulation, visits, and program attendance has increased.
“RAND’s study is a critical information tool for the entire community,” said Barbara K. Mistick, president and director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. “Over the coming months, we want to create a community dialogue about the importance of libraries. We want to engage library customers, foundations, elected officials, civic leaders, and the community at large. We need them to be our partners in determining the future of library services and funding and how we can serve our community best.”
New Social Inquiry is a brand new academic journal, but they aren’t just any academic journal. Right on the front page they claim that they will be a different kind of academic journal. They will be publishing social research essays and relative works that are accessible to a wide audience, engaging and relevant for non-specialists, yet sophisticated and complex enough to push scholarship forward.
Their first publication will focus on public dialogue. Here’s an excerpt from the guidelines for submission:
Is there such a thing as public dialogue, now or in the past? If so, who participates, who leads, and what forms does it take? If not, how can it realistically be realized? What are the main challenges to
establishing/maintaining public dialogue? What are good examples of public dialogue working in the world today?
What is/are the relationship(s) between public dialogue(s) and social inquiry(ies)?
Shotgun essays should be no longer than 1000 words–we said “short”, and we mean it.
The deadline is January 19, 2009. Shouldn’t libraries be prominently featured?
Richard Fitzsimmons from Penn State Worthington/Scranton has produced this useful annotated bibliography of monographs, government documents, and websites, focused on strengthening the cultural will towards democracy and interdependence in today’s global society. He has assembled these resources that have the potential to expand one’s ideas of citizenship not only to our local communities and our nations, but also to our world.
Additions/questions may be submitted to Richard Fitzsimmons, rxf7@psu.edu.
The new Public Engagement Primer from Public Agenda is a valuable resource for those trying to better understand what public engagement is all about, and for those trying to explain it.
Public engagement creates conditions for average citizens to effectively get involved in deliberation, dialogue and action on public issues that they care about. In a few short pages, the primer explains how public engagement helps create civic capacity for public problem solving, offers 10 core principles of effective public engagement and enlists a few examples of key practices and strategies.
The primer also describes the power of “Citizen Choicework,” a critical element in many deliberative processes. Some other essentials covered in the primer:
Authentic public engagement vs. business as usual
Capacity-building vs. event-oriented approaches to engagement
Responding thoughtfully and conscientiously to the public’s involvement
Building long-term capacity
Strengths and weaknesses of various engagement approaches and strategies
