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

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

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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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)

7. 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

8. 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)
Laura

9. Puerto Rican Cultural Center http://www.prcc-chgo.org
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
Laura

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

11. 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
Deshawn

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

13. 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
Jesenia

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

15. 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.)

16. 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
Terry

17. 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…
Terry

18. Experimenting with modes of inquiry
Spring/Summer 2003: Weekend work sessions - moving books from old to new PRCC
Fall 2003/Spring 2004: Street Academy 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
Summer 2005: Cataloging next steps: Community work days, summer camp, short course?
Terry

19. HS student goals 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
Jalissa

20. 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
Terry

21. 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
Suhua

22. 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
Laura

23. 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
Suhua

24. 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
Suhua

25. 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
Suhua

26. Library project collaborators in Paseo Boricua - Thanks!
José E. López, Alejandro Molina – Original invitation and ideas (2003)
Alejandro Molina, Laura R. Johnson, Mayra Hernandez, Robin Daverso, and the Street Academy students (2004)
Yarimar Bonilla – next steps with the library project and further activities involving the youth in learning (2005)
Suhua

27. Next steps in the library project (Summer 2005 and beyond)
One or two school library work days
A mini course or workshop for youth leadership training
Training in cataloging
Developing a proposal for cataloging and library club
Transfer our cataloging tools and processes to neighborhood activists for further development
suhua

28. Conclusion: library development as community inquiry
Neighborhood organizations, libraries, universities join together as a community of inquiry
Everyone learns librarianship and community development together
Co-designers of iLab software: developed free and simple online catalog that others can use
ann

29. 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
ann

30. 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)
Bishop, A. P., Bazzell, I., Mehra, B., & Smith, C. (2001). Afya: Social and digital technologies that reach across the digital divide. First Monday, 6(4).
Chivhanga, B. M. (2003). Web knitter's manual - A people approach to produce web content. London.

31. Resources
Elshtain, J. B. (Ed.) (2002). The Jane Addams reader. NY: Basic Books.
Greenwood, D. J., & Levin, M. (1998.) Introduction to action research: Social research for social change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hickman, L. A. (1990). John Dewey's pragmatic technology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. (1999). Returning to our roots: The engaged institution. Washington, DC: Nat’l Assn. Of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.
Kennedy, D. (1996). Forming communities of inquiry in early childhood classrooms. Early Child Development and Care, 120(1), 1-15.

32. Resources
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.
Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. NY: Basic Books.
Stanfield, J. H. (1999). Slipping through the front door: Relevant social scientific evaluation in the People of Color Century. American Journal of Evaluation, 20(3), ,
Whitmore, E. (ed.). (1998). Understanding and practicing participatory evaluation. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

33. Community Informatics: players
CIRN (Community Informatics Research Network)
Association for Community Networking
CTCNet (Community Tech Centers Network)
Journal of Community Informatics

34. 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

35. The challenge: creating technologies that help communities work
How do actual communities work to address their problems?
What theory adequately accounts for the complexity and diversity of (distributed) collective practice?
What tools are needed to mediate work on concrete tasks within communities?
What is the most effective process for developing shared capacity in the form of knowledge, skills, & tools?