Paseo Boricua Community Library Project Ann Peterson Bishop University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science Community as Intellectual Space, June 17-19, 2005

American pragmatism and community inquiry Charles Sanders Peirce ( ) William James ( ) John Dewey ( ) Jane Addams ( ) See Menand’s The Metaphysical Club

The cycle of inquiry “Genuine intellectual integrity is found in experimental knowing.” John Dewey

Community inquiry: 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

Community inquiry: how should we live together? “…the desire to make the entire social organism democratic, to extend democracy beyond its political expression.” --Jane Addams

A natural alliance: community inquiry and informatics Study and practice of enabling communities with information and communications technologies (ICTs) (Gurstein, in Journal of CI, 2004) A rich variety of social experiments in what we term community informatics (CI) are giving community-activists, policy-makers and citizens a new set of possibilities for fostering social cohesion, strengthening neighborhood ties, overcoming cultural isolation and combatting social exclusion and deprivation (Keeble and Loader, 2001)

Community Inquiry Laboratory  Community: Collaborative activity around creating knowledge that is connected to people's values, history, and lived experiences  Inquiry: Open-ended, democratic, participatory engagement  Laboratory: Bringing theory and action together in an experimental and critical manner The Community iLab Collaborative - developing a conceptual framework and set of free, open source web software

Community inquiry in Paseo Boricua Mile-long section of Division Street in Chicago's Humboldt Park “Barrio autonomy” (Rinaldi, 2002): autonomous cultural, political, and economic space for Puerto Rican and Latino/Latina residents that came into being as a response to encroaching gentrification and displacement in nearby sections of the city (Flores-González, 2001)

Puerto Rican Cultural Center 30 years in Chicago’s 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

La Casita de Don Pedro Museum: Simple house from Puerto Rico Built by HS students Cultural space: Bomba dancing, artist fairs

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

Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos HS Alternative HS: More comfortable Safer Small classroom settings and local projects Teachers care!

Vida/SIDA Puerto Ricans in Chicago affected disproportionately by AIDS Local artist & ex- prisoner Luis Rosa painted mural Education and prevention regarding AIDS AIDS clinic also started

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

National Boricua Human Rights Network Support for PR political prisoners Active in movement to remove US Navy from Vieques, PR Defends civil liberties and educates against repressive legislation (Patriot Act, etc.)

Paseo Boricua Community Library Project goals (1/2003) Create a distributed community of inquiry whose participants come from all walks of life University and community collaboration Each has something to learn and contribute Learn how to mobilize neighborhood info and cultural resources for community development activities Address digital divide Enrich library and information science with experiences and knowledge of Paseo Boricua residents

Who’s involved Students from the HS and Family Learning Center Neighborhood activists Faculty and students from UI’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science Faculty and students from University of Illinois at Chicago, other universities Librarians, kids, friends…

Experimenting with modes of inquiry Spring/Summer 2003: Weekend work sessions - moving books from old to new PRCC Fall 2003/Spring 2004: Street Academy in Community Librarianship for HS youth Spring 2005: Cataloging project (Terry and Suhua) May 2005: Not Enough Space exhibit at UIUC June 2005 Community as Intellectual Space symposium Fall 2005: Cataloging work days; HS reading and research groups

HS student goals in Street Academy 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

UIUC student goals Collaboratively share resources with Paseo Boricua Practice library skills within community setting People skills: collaboration and presentation Technology skills: online database, online information retrieval, digital library expertise Cataloging and library management Create functional learning resource center that students and community members can operate Explore community informatics and community inquiry theory as a student researcher

Existing assets: Community Library and Information Center 3d World book collection (4000 vols.) Community tech center Posters, sculpture and art, children’s books Archives: Newsletters, fliers, letters, pamphlets Never been cataloged

From collections to a library Students & volunteers become library staff Cataloging Reference Policies Mission statement Collection policies Services and programs Family reading night Web gallery for posters Management Grant-writing, publicity

Cataloging Chose metadata/fields Flexible-can use for all collections Meet current standards Vocabulary and description from community Not all that hard! Created own catalog as iLab software

Spring 2005 cataloging work Reviewed the original goals methodology from Revised the Paseo Boricua Catalog Manual (created first in 2004) Based on knowledge of cataloging from our courses Tried to make each step sensible to anyone as a beginner cataloger Developed a simple system for call numbers

Documenting and sharing our cataloging processes Uploaded instructions to the Paseo Boricua Community Library Project inquiry lab, so that other catalogers can get access: Instructions for ordering the PRCC bookshelves Instructions for assigning PRCC call numbers Instructions for adding new entries to the PRCC web catalog

Conclusion: library development as community inquiry Every individual must be consulted in such a way, actively not passively, that he himself becomes a part of the process of authority. Dewey, Democracy & Education

Resources Bishop, et al. (2004). Supporting community inquiry with digital resources. Journal of Digital Information, 5(3). Bishop, A. P., & Molina, A. (2004). Felicitaciones, Paseo Boricua! (cover story in the magazine Voice of Youth Activists) Elshtain, J. B. (Ed.) (2002). The Jane Addams reader. NY: Basic Books. Hickman, L. A. (1990). John Dewey's pragmatic technology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Resources Kennedy, D. (1996). Forming communities of inquiry in early childhood classrooms. Early Child Development and Care, 120(1), Menand, L. (2001). The metaphysical club. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 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 ). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Living and learning together: “pragmatic technology” The common language notion of how to design tools to meet real human needs, accommodate to users, and situations A conception of design from pragmatist theory, which sees technologies as developed within a community of inquiry and embodying both means of action and forms of understanding. Technology is an end result of, as well as a means to accomplish, community work. Technology = library call number system, project website, digital library catalog, ways of collaborating