Paseo Boricua Community Library Project

1. Paseo Boricua Community Library Project Ann Peterson Bishop (abishop@uiuc.edu), 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

2. American pragmatism andcommunity inquiry • Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) • William James (1842-1910) • John Dewey (1859-1952) • Jane Addams (1860-1935) 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 inPaseo 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)

9. Puerto Rican Cultural Centerhttp://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

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

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

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

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

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

15. National BoricuaHuman 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 BoricuaCommunity 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

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…

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?

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

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

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

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

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

24. Spring 2005 cataloging work • Reviewed the original goals methodology from 2003 http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/publish/kmangel/450/paseo.html • 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

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: http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu/ilab/pbcl/ • Instructions for ordering the PRCC bookshelves • Instructions for assigning PRCC call numbers • Instructions for adding new entries to the PRCC web catalog

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)

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

28. Conclusion: library developmentas 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

29. Conclusion: library developmentas 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

30. Resources • Bishop, et al. (2004). Supporting community inquiry with digital resources. Journal of Digital Information, 5(3). http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v05/i03/Bishop/ • Bishop, A. P., & Molina, A. (2004). Felicitaciones, Paseo Boricua! (cover story in the magazine Voice of Youth Activists) http://www.voya.com • 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). http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_4/bishop/index.html • Chivhanga, B. M. (2003). Web knitter's manual - A people approach to produce web content. London. http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~ck521/papwec/

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. 57-64). 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), 415-431, • Whitmore, E. (ed.). (1998). Understanding and practicing participatory evaluation. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

33. Community Informatics: players CIRN (Community Informatics Research Network) http://www.ciresearch.net/index.htm Association for Community Networking http://www.afcn.org CTCNet (Community Tech Centers Network) http://www.ctcnet.org/ Journal of Community Informatics http://ci-journal.net/index.php

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?