Community Informatics Multimedia Archive

I recently had the opportunity to volunteer for Project Next Generation (PNG), an after school program in Champaign, IL, that allows youth who may have limited access to technology to interact with various information communication technologies (video recorders, computers, digital cameras, Microsoft Applications, Audacity, Garage Band, the typical fun stuff). Just to give a little background, PNG is a state funded program that was started by the Douglass Branch of the Champaign Public Library. The curriculum is taught by three mentors who are paid staff for the program with the help of the occasional volunteer. There is a lot of mentor turnover, so the curriculum is usually designed around the skills of the current mentors. Right now, digital photography and video recording seem to be the focus of the current curriculum.

PNG is an exciting program, in my opinion, for two reasons: it has a lot of potential to give teens and pre-teens a voice in their community and it is a community informatics project (although I doubt anyone who is involved in PNG besides me would call it that) which was started without the help of the University of Illinois. To me, this program shows that Douglass Library and state government are concerned about the communities that would normally go un-served in terms of technology access. I personally enjoy volunteering because I like getting involved with the kids and the mentors; it helps me feel connected to Champaign.

While I love helping out at PNG, I am also aware that the program is not operating as well as it could. There are several problems that seem to have cropped up in the last couple weeks. The most pressing issue is the lack of communication between the kids and the mentors. The mentors see the kids as disrespectful and a little immature for their age. While I understand the reasons why they feel that way (two out of the three mentors are older women), I disagree with their opinion as I was in middle school myself about 9-10 years ago. On the other hand, the kids seem to think that the curriculum is not fun and wish for more social time.

Another issue that I’ve come across is that the curriculum is not relevant in that it doesn’t help the kids engage with the community or do something empowering. The activities are usually something like create a game out of pictures or a photography scavenger hunt. While these activities are interesting, I think that kids who have had more exposure to technology find them to be unchallenging and those who aren’t interested in the technology (but more in the social aspect) find them to be boring.

Lastly, the room where PNG is held is not conducive to group learning. There is no overhead screen or projector so the mentors have to teach in small groups, which causes the students to learn different skills. Furthermore, the mentors seem to have favorites and the teaching atmosphere reinforces mentors choosing the same students or the same students working with the same mentors. Sharing work and coordinating are very difficult. Also, the room is just plain uninviting as it looks almost like a classroom.

I think that there are several steps for improving PNG, although I don’t think these steps can address all of the above issues. One, the mentors and the kids need to sit down and talk out their differences as well as discuss what shape the curriculum should take. Two, the mentors need to find out about community projects or issues that could be the focus of large PNG projects to be shared with the community. Three, the kids need to be taught how to teach each other so that kids with a certain set of skills can help someone who does not have those skills. Four, mentors need to allow the kids to assume some leadership roles in terms of how the program is run. The mentors should be just that—mentors. And five, the kids need to be taught the importance of technology and the importance of being media literate. They need to know not just what to do with the technology but why it’s important to learn what to do with it.

–Noelle Williams

Art can be an expression of many things, including: injustice, anger, hope, forgiveness, understanding, and empowerment. There has been a dialogue for decades among scholars, academics, and artists about the purpose of art, whether art is supposed to be just art, or is art supposed to be political.

When one says, that a particular piece of art is “political” one automatically assumes that it has a negative connotation: that it is against the status quo, it stands for resistance, and it calls for anarchy. However, I take the term as a positive, one should not be afraid of things that are political as it encourages others to take action, and to think about society and their role in it.

At first glance, the mural created by Angela Rivers, community youth, who were working with CETA (a summer training program), and others in 1978, does not seem to be “political.” Since there are no Black power signs, no Black Nationalist flag of black, red, green, no Malcolm X, no Harriet Tubman, etc, the iconic figures and symbols that one associates with political expression in the Black community. What was surprising to me as I heard her talk was how people resisted having the mural pictured as “too radical” or “too political,” as if that would be wrong. Rather the mural pictures a Black family, images from the Middle Passage, a railroad, scenes from Africa, scenes from slavery, a sun, migration denotations etc. These images do not scream “Black power,” but in actuality, they do because they signify the strength and resilience of the Black community in Champaign-Urbana and on a global level. These are images of strength that people can hold on to on the days when they are feeling down. One can look at the mural and say “My ancestors came from Africa, they survived slavery, they kept the family together, so I can do better, I can be better.” Ms. Rivers remarked on the sense of pride and ownership the majority of those in the community had toward the mural. Furthermore, the community wanted the artists of the mural to be community based, not from outside because they felt that only someone from within would have an understanding of who the community is. The mural could not have been created without the support of the community by donating their materials, time, food, and suggestions.

However, it seems from Rivers’ discussions that this sense of empowerment within the community has eroded since the 60s and 70s, due to the deepening institutional racism within society, the economic downturn, the educational system not meeting their needs, drugs, etc. Despite this, the community has continued to respect the mural by not writing graffiti on it (until recently, but it is still little). During Ms. Rivers’ presentations, she was asked repeatedly about restoring the mural, but she has been hesitant about it because of the cost (approximately $50,000) and because the community is different, (the lack of unity along with the change in values). Therefore, she believes that the mural has served its purpose. I agree with her, but I would like to see another mural created, if money were not an option, that would serve as a continuation of the history of Blacks in Champaign-Urbana community and a look toward the future. I believe that looking toward the future would help those in the community who feel that they have no future–to imagine one for themselves. In addition, it could include the role technology (or rather the lack of it) has played in the community.

The overall sentiment/idea that I gathered from listening to her lecture was that empowerment can come in many forms and art is just one. In addition, community unity is imperative to getting something done, which demonstrates that if enough voices and hands are involved, things can be completed. Furthermore, for something to occur it needs to be important to the community otherwise people do not care and will not see it through, thus when community informatics researchers work with the community they need to make clear what this means for them and those they care about. Therefore, the initiatives and actions taken have to be political, personal, and require community unity.

-Aaisha Haykal

I have been thinking a lot about how disciplinary orientations shape the way we think about Community Informatics after having a conversation with a colleague about how the museum community has addressed many issues relating to community informatics and community engagement for many years.

Reading recently Kate Williams’s and Joan Durrance’s forthcoming Library and Information Science article on Community Informatics I was struck by what was missing. Kate and Joan see CI as growing out of library community outreach in the 1970s as well as social informatics. But I wonder about the genealogy… I see the community information movement of the 1970s’ American public library as part of a larger project of democratization of culture involving more activist archivists and the placement of museum exhibits and oral history projects and public memory workshops (with renewed community control) in communities in which they had never been before. So I wonder whether or not Kate and Joan’s article is privileging the role of libraries in the history of community informatics because of their (especially Joan’s) disciplinary allegiance to librarianship. It seems to me like we are still stalled in our interdisciplinary conversation about community informatics and cultural heritage, and reaching the bigger conversation among librarians, museum professionals and archivists [or as they have been called collectively culture heritage professionals] requires reading each other’s literature to see the roots of community engagement in all fields, without privileging a particular genealogy based on our disciplinary allegiances.

–Noah Lenstra

I have been involved with CI for the past 3 months now, and I am beginning to get used to the ideologies behind CI and the common terms often used by CI faculty, staff, students, and enthusiasts. Terms like community engagement and information technology as well as all the various acronyms like CI, CTCs, CII, and ESLARP just to name a few; I’m actually quite proud of myself for getting the swing of things so quickly. However there is one nagging question in the back of my mind to which I have not found the answer. Behind all the ideologies, terms, and acronyms is a sense that community informatics is a solution to all the social ills that plague communities. I guess, then, that my specific question would be is community informatics the answer to most problems in the community?

The answer, I believe, is yes and no. Yes, because our society is becoming more and more dependent upon technology, especially information technologies for communication. No, because technology cannot solve the problems of poverty, institutionalized racism in the education and justice systems, or homelessness; only community members, special interest and grassroots organizations, and local government officials can truly do that. And yes again, because information technologies bring together all of those groups and can provide tools, such as GIS, to simplify efforts to cure social ills. But no again, because those groups must choose to be actively involved in any project to rid their communities of the specific social ill. I’m not quite sure if you can see my dilemma, but, as a new student trying to piece together some sort of meaning or future direction within the GSLIS program from class work, an assistantship, and extracurricular activities, it is a serious one.

The seriousness of the problem lies in the real issue which is that Community Informatics cannot happen without the community at large. If, for instance, local government officials decide that they are not interested in the issue of poverty within their community, then special interest groups and community members would be left to piece together funding and initiatives without their help. That would mean that a segment of the community would not be likeminded in the sense that they would not be educated on the issue, creating what would become a cacophonous community—a community that is split because some are educated on the issue and agree on initiatives to solve it and some are ignorant of the problem (or the true nature of the problem) and do not know enough information to know how to respond to the proposed initiatives. A cacophonous community is one that is likely to be divided on the issue instead of united in an effort to create a visible and lasting change within the community.

Furthermore, a cacophonous community will make it difficult for any initiative to succeed since the time, talents, and expertise of part of the community will be lacking in any projects to come from an initiative that is not totally supported by the community at large. I call it a cacophonous community because the community is not just divided on what action to take against a specific social ill (if any is to be taken), but the mentality and attitude of the entire community on the issue is divided in a way that it creates an atmosphere of disunity within the community at large. This is the Achilles Heel of CI, one that I think GSLIS CI enthusiasts may take for granted in the relatively forward thinking and privileged community of Urbana-Champaign.

This issue creates a new question, one that is more important than whether or not community informatics is the answer to most problems in the community: can Community Informatics happen in a community when the community is a cacophonous community? Within this question lies a host of other questions, such as can community informatics happen when state government officials do not support or desire to fund initiatives by community members to cure social ills? Or when rural areas of a community are located an hour away from the urban areas where special interest and grassroots organizations often forget about them? At what point is it impossible for CI to happen?

When I started this post, I honestly admitted that I did not have an answer to the initial question. The reason I find it difficult to come to a positive conclusion is because I cannot answer these later questions. However, in my short time at GSLIS I have come to realize that the best way to answer this question is to continue to do what I am doing right now. I need to continue to take CI courses that interest me, attend interesting lectures about CI, work closely with those involved in CI, ask faculty and staff about their experiences, collaborate with peers to work on CI projects, and stay involved in the CI Club. Only when I can understand how CI works in an area with high community involvement can I begin to understand how CI might work in a cacophonous community; I believe there is an answer. I just don’t think I’ve found that answer yet.

–Noelle Williams

Larry Stillman of Monash University wrote the original drafts on community informatics for Wikipedia. He just posted this comment to the “ciresearchers” listserv:

What is CILabs?
Drawing from the work of John Dewey and others, showing that education begins with the curiosity of the learner, CILabs promotes an iterative process of inquiry: asking questions, investigating solutions, creating new knowledge, discussing experiences, and reflecting on new-found knowledge, in a way that leads to new questions.
In addition to the standard features found on group support sites, such as Ning, Google, Yahoo, and Moodle, CILabs offers a means for building Inquiry Units based on the Inquiry Cycle. Also, unlike most university-supported software there is a secure means for users without university netid’s to participate. This is crucial for university-community collaborations.
CILabs (aka iLabs) are being used currently in courses such as Will Patterson’s Hip Hop as Community Informatics and Martin Wolske’s Intro to Network Systems. Projects such as Youth Community Informatics use it as do a variety of other projects and organizations.

The redesign
Despite filling a need for many individuals and groups, use of CILabs fell off after a security hole was discovered in CILabs 3. That led to a temporary shutdown and a major redesign on the Drupal platform. Thanks to the support of Robert Baird at CITES EdTech, a project to rebuild CILabs was led by Alan Bilansky with Julieanne Chapman as lead programmer. Claudia Serbanuta represented GSLIS and the CILabs user base. The new CILabs is now hosted by the University of Illinois College of Education, thanks to Ryan Thomas and John Barclay. This represents an unusual and successful collaboration across two colleges and CITES, with support from the Community Informatics Initiative and the Illinois Informatics Institute.
I encourage you to give it a try now, and to let us know how to improve it.

There are many ways of looking at diversity within an LIS program and a few are:
1. The students themselves-how many are enrolled and what are their demographic
2. The curriculum-what is taught and how it is taught
3. The faculty-the demographic of the professors who are teaching the future librarians, archivists, and other information professionals
4. The activities that the LIS programs are or are not engaged in-what communities and libraries are being reached

Thus, when one is talking about diversity within LIS it is important to consider what dimension of diversity one is referring. Most of the time, it refers to the students who are enrolled within and what kind of background they come from. Specifically, it is in relation to their skin color and gender, and ignores other types of diversity such as age, mobility, geographic, religion, etc. Diversity within these areas is important, as they are reflective of the American population. The population is not all White, male, and young and therefore the profession cannot be this either. In addition, by having a diverse student body, students learn about each other. This will allow them to discuss the issues that are facing communities from different perspectives. Moreover, each student can share with each other the priorities and goals that one has, that someone may not have deemed important before talking with this person.

I think that one of the concerns LIS administrative heads have is if the profession is reflective of those who they serve. This is a serious concern because community members themselves may feel more comfortable with people who they identify with. Although this issue seems to be more significant to those who are public librarians, it can also be significant to any institution, where a Black patron may not feel comfortable talking to a White female because he or she comes from a place where Whites and Blacks were not in close contact.

The curriculum of the program is significant as well because, if all that is taught in the classroom is theory without suggestions for practical application in society, the curriculum can become problematic. It is important for people to be aware of the societal issues that are at play in the field-such as inequality, poverty, unemployment, etc; thus librarians cannot be thinking within a bubble only about collections, metadata, and information retrieval and not be aware of the conditions that face the people they serve. Therefore, the classes need to consider this. In addition, when professors are providing examples for their students they should provide examples from various categories to appeal to the students.

The diversity of the faculty is important because the professors need to come from diverse backgrounds in order to bring different experiences to the table. Those from a marginalized portion of society can speak from a position from outside the sites of privilege, are not afraid to critique, and make suggestions about how to change libraries and the field of librarianship. In addition, by having a diverse faculty it can attract more of the same people because they can see an example of a person who “made” it. Although I am not planning to be a faculty member at a university, I see myself as a “model,” for youth when I become a librarian in an archive or museum that serves the Black community.

The activities that the LIS program is involved with are important because it demonstrates whom the LIS program values. If they are only serving historically privileged communities it shows that those who are being affected by the digital divide are being ignored. The emphasis on the communities that already provide the better resources to their population most likely do not need as much guidance and support as those in underprivileged communities. This is not to say that these communities may not need help and if they do then they need to be helped, but not at the exclusion of others. Furthermore, at GSLIS, we have a strong connection with the UFL, but the Douglass Library in Champaign, which serves a predominately-Black community, does not seem to get much support. Is it because there is a divide between U of I and the library or because it was not thought about? I did not know about the library until Professor Alkalimat discussed it in class.

The conversation surrounding diversity and LIS will be a continuing one and one that has important implications for the future of the profession.

In my Community Informatics class last week, we spoke in passing about the fact that many people in the 21st century see themselves solely as individuals, largely not responsible for or impacted by the rest of society. In many ways, I feel that this is a widely-held conception. As strangers, we pass each other wordlessly on the street. We sit silently next to one another on the bus, not even acknowledging each others’ presence. If all of the tables at a café are full, we often take our food with us rather than ask a stranger if we can share his or her table.

So where does Community Informatics come into this? I think what I like best about CI is that we strive to connect people. We believe that community members can and should help one another and also that communities can help other communities. We encourage partnerships, education, technology, dialogue, and (most importantly) action.

On September 14, Elaine Hicks, a fellow Community Informatics Initiative GA, gave a practice talk for her upcoming presentation at the annual meeting of the Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association. The talk was an opportunity to gain constructive feedback on the presentation, the purpose of which is to encourage health services librarians to take advantage of opportunities to create partnerships with local public health workers, thereby enriching both sides of the profession with the increased dialogue between those with similar professional interests but different skill sets.

Then, on September 16, I attended a presentation by Ann Abbott (as part of the CII Research Series) on her Spanish Service Learning program that utilizes social media. This program takes those students who are learning or improving their Spanish skills and who need communicative practice in real-world settings and brings them together with social service agencies who serve the Latino community but may not have adequate staffing of Spanish-speakers. Thus, both students and social services providers benefit from the exchange, as well as the Latino community. By using Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and various other social media to contact students about immediate needs for interpreters, make training videos for future students, and share experiences, they provide a much-needed service (in an innovative way) while fostering education.

Rather than accept the disconnect between public health workers and health services librarians, Elaine decided she wanted to do something about that. Instead of lamenting the lack of Spanish immersion opportunities in the U.S. for Spanish majors who can’t study abroad, Ann created her own means of mini-immersion. At CI, we try to identify things the community needs and work to satisfy those needs by empowering the community.

Isn’t CI great? There’s something interesting to reflect on almost everyday!

The amount of spam being submitted to this blog has gotten out of hand so we had to change the settings. You must be logged in and registered in order to comment on entries. I did not want to have to do this, but we’re going to try it out for a little while in order to get the spam under control.

If you have any questions on how to register for the blog please e-mail Noelle at Willi102[@]illinois.edu.

My friend, artist Bonnie Fortune, has organized a whole month of exhibits, performances, and displays in two cities–Champaign and Chicago–around women’s health justice movements in the U.S. from 1969-2009. As part of her project, she and I installed material in a display case outside of the History Library at the University of Illinois. She called our work the “fine art of the pedagogical bulletin board.” In the case, we included feminist zines from the 1970s and the present, buttons, colorful posters, newsletters, announcements of upcoming lectures and performances, and books. The books we chose included two that have been really important to both of us: Andrea Smith’s Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (2005), and Dorothy Roberts’ Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (1998). The other books are by UIUC professors, Leslie Reagan, Sarah Projansky, and Ruth Nicole Brown. If you are on campus, check it out. It’s on the second floor of the Main Library. There’s also a poster display from the Women’s Graphics Collective in Chicago that can be seen at the Women’s Resource Center, 703 S. Wright St, 2nd floor, Champaign.

Display case outside History Library, UIUC