1. Community Inquiry and LIS
Ann Peterson Bishop
Library & Information Science
U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2. Community-Based Research, Learning & Action
Uniting people from all walks of life in identifying, investigating, and taking action on conditions that affect the well-being of local residents.

3. Definitions and Examples
Participatory Action Research
Participatory Evaluation
Appreciative Inquiry
Service Learning

4. Participatory Action Research/ Participatory Evaluation
Incorporate local knowledge held by marginalized groups;
Gain the participation of marginalized groups in all stages;
Build capacity and achieve constructive social outcomes.

5.
ICR has used participatory action research as a capacity building and prevention approach for youth and adults in the greater Hartford, CT area. Issues that have been addressed include sexual identity and support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning youth, working with young girls and their mothers as a drug, alcohol and tobacco prevention model, and engaging residents around issues of community and family strengthening.

6.
CURL promotes an innovative model of teaching and learning that reaches beyond Loyola's campuses and classrooms to develop equal partnerships between the university and Chicago's communities. CURL is guided by a mission which places strong emphasis on research that addresses community needs and involves the community at all levels of research. By working closely with activists outside the university, the Center recognizes and values the knowledge and experience of individuals and organizations in non-academic settings.

7.
Appreciative inquiry turns the problem-solving approach on its head. It focuses on a community's achievements rather than its problems, and seeks to go beyond participation to foster inspiration at the grass-roots level.

8.
Service-learning combines service objectives with learning objectives with the intent that the activity change both the recipient and the provider of the service. This is accomplished by combining service tasks with structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content.

9. Keep your eye on…
East St. Louis Action Research Project
Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society
Urban Exchange Center / Civitas
Community Inquiry Labs

10. Community Inquiry Labs
A place where members of a community come together to develop shared capacity and work on common problems.
"Community" = support for collaborative activity and for creating knowledge that is connected to people's values, history,
and lived experiences.
"Inquiry" = support for open-ended, democratic, participatory engagement.
"Laboratory" = a space and resources to bring theory and action together in an experimental and critical manner.
A CIL is most importantly a concept…

11. Community Inquiry Labs
Web-based suite of Open Source software tools to support collaboration and communication (e.g., bulletin board, document uploading, calendar, inquiry units)
People create CILs (websites) on their own, to support their activities within and among groups
Inquiry units = lesson plans, action plans, meeting minutes, research reports, journals, policy statements, etc.

12. Community Inquiry Lab Goals http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/cil/partners.php
How can we:
connect learning & life?
support participatory design?
accommodate diversity & shared values?

13. Connect Learning and Life: ESLARP ESLARP Sample Inquiry Unit

14. Support Participatory Design: SisterNet http://sisternetonline
New model for Black women's organizing
Wholeness through physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual health
Political strategy to resist oppression and shape livable communities
Community health fairs, conferences, and learning/action circles

15. SisterNet’s CIL in Action
Taking Action for Water Quality

16. Spiritual Health Plan For the Create section --
I would like to accomplish the following goals: Once each week I would like to take at least four (4) hours of the weekend for my own enjoyment. This will include, but is not limited to, things like: going to the beauty shop, going out to dinner or to the movies with my husband, reading my Bible or some other book, or just praying or meditating. … I also will let my family know that I love and support them...

17. Accommodate Difference & Shared Values: Paseo Boricua Community Library Project
Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood
Galvanizes neighborhood residents around community projects
Addresses critical issues: gang violence, AIDS, social and environmental justice, literacy, and economic development

18. Paseo Boricua Street Academy http://inquiry. uiuc. edu/cil/out. php

19. Participatory Inquiry and Information Systems
Design through use or participatory inquiry aims to respond to human needs by democratic processes. Through creation of content, contributions to interactive elements, and incorporation into practice, users are not merely recipients of technology, but participate actively in its ongoing development.

20. Co-Evolution
Knowledge
Technology
Community

21. Equitable relations, then tasks
renders the progress of expertise in a community secondary to a relational and epistemological practice of confronting differences so that its participants can come to understand how the beliefs and purposes of others can call their own into question.
Clark, "Rescuing the discourse of community"

22. Active participation
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

23. Community Inquiry Track at GSLIS
LIS 450 IBL: Inquiry-Based Learning
LIS 450 PT: Pragmatic Technology
LIS 450 SJ: Social Justice in the Information Professions
LIS450CI: Community Information Systems
LIS450PAR: Participatory Action Research

24. Roles for LIS Professionals
Collaborate in community-based
research, learning, and action!
Needs assessment and community analysis
Finding and organizing information
Design and evaluation of information technology
Gathering and presenting data
Project planning
Co-teaching in service-learning courses

25. Resources
Bruce, B. C., & Bishop, A. P. (2002, May). Using the web to support inquiry-based literacy development. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45(8).
Clark, G. (1994). Rescuing the discourse of community. College Composition and Communication, 45(1), 61–74.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan.
Freire, Paolo (2002). Pedagogy of the oppressed. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Continuum.
Glassman, M Dewey and Vygotsky: Society, experience, and inquiry in educational practice. Educational Researcher, 30(4), 3-14.

26. Resources
Greenwood, Davydd J., & Levin, Morten. (1998). Introduction to action research: Social research for social change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Patton, M.Q. (1999). Some framing questions about racism and evaluation." The American Journal of Evaluation, 20(30),
Rinaldo, R. (2002). Space of resistance: The Puerto Rican Cultural Center and Humboldt Park. Cultural Critique , 50,
Stringer, Ernest T. (1999). Action research. 2d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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.
Whitmore, E. (ed.). (1998). Understanding and practicing participatory evaluation. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

27. Contact Information
Ann Bishop