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

Champaign County Prepares

Help the Champaign-Urbana public health department correct any rumors about flu out there. Post questions or concerns that you hear. They will respond. Join their Facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Champaign-IL/Champaign-County-Prepares/57372106172

Last week I began my journey as a graduate student.  Three long years have passed since I graduated with my BA, and while I was proud of myself for putting in all the time and effort to get through the whole application process, I was also a little apprehensive.

After all, everything was new and different. I had just moved to Illinois from Iowa and didn’t know where anything was. I’d been out of school for a while – did I really remember how this school stuff worked? Also, grad students are formidable people, since they must have both intellect and drive to get accepted into selective programs. What would graduate school really be like with all those competitive, intelligent people together in such a small space?

However, my introduction into the world of graduate school has been without tragedy. So far I’ve figured out the bus routes, found all of my classrooms, and kept my head above water. I got to know my new coworkers within the Community Informatics Initiative, as well as some of the Fellows and Ph.D. students involved with CI. The Community Informatics Club also had its first activity of the year on Friday night — a big potluck party at Sharon Irish’s house with an opportunity to meet lots of others interested in CI — although in a more relaxed, friendly atmosphere. I had a great time, and most of the food was even vegetarian-friendly!

So, like a steam locomotive slowly gaining power and speed, grad school is starting to roll along for me. However, there is one thing that gives me pause: my classmates’ fear of asking questions. A coworker pointed out to me that in one of our classes only one student dared to speak up and ask for clarification on an assignment, although everyone was confused, which they admitted later. Why would something like this happen in a room full of intelligent, driven people who want to learn with an intelligent, helpful professor at the helm? I believe the answer is two-fold: 1) No one wants to look stupid, and 2) Perhaps incoming LIS grad students think that they should be able to figure out everything on their own, and it’s a sign of weakness to need help retrieving and/or interpreting information.

Yes, this is a long blog post…but it’s important.

Many of us dread looking stupid. The fact that we’re here shows that we prize education and count it as one of the most important things in our lives – otherwise we would not be incurring great debt, losing sleep, and eating 100 Pop-Tarts a month for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in order to cope with the demands of graduate school.

However, no question is stupid — questions help us learn. They help us grasp what we already understand and ascertain what we still need to figure out. If we do not ask, we can hope to find the answer later, but at what cost to our academic success and peace of mind? I hope that this is only a symptom of first-week jitters and that soon eager minds will inquire about any and all topics of interest in all of my classes. However, I am glad that I am reflecting on this now, at the beginning of the term, when I can review my purpose for being here and resolve to ask as many questions as I need to in order to get what I want out of my education and my time at U of I.