This past year, the Ferguson Public Library provided a strong example of the value of a library, especially in times of community struggle. During the Q&A portion of his presentation as part of the Information City CU lecture series, Scott Bonner, library director, mentioned that his leadership choices in Ferguson arose from the philosophy of ethics explored as part of his graduate program.

The following bibliography has been developed in advance of my spring 2015 course Community Engagement (LIS418) (Syllabus) and seeks to continue leadership development bringing theory and practice into dialogue for a new generation of library and information science professionals. It especially highlights community engagement from the library and higher education perspectives with which I am most familiar. I do not pretend that this bibliography is exhaustive, but especially emphasizes resources I find most informative in the area.

I welcome further suggestions in advance of class, and invite others to join us weekly Tuesdays from 9-11:50am in room 341 of the Library and Information Science building, 501 E. Daniel St. Champaign, beginning January 20th, as we discuss these readings in light of our community engagement practices. An updated version of this bibliography will be posted in May based on feedback I get before and during the course of the semester.

THEORIES OF COMMUNITY AND ENGAGEMENT

Arnstein, S.R. (1969) A Ladder of Citizen Participation. JAIP, 35(4), 216-224. Downloaded from: http://lithgow-schmidt.dk/sherry-arnstein/ladder-of-citizen-participation.html

Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, New England Resource Center for Higher Education – College of Education and Human Development, University of Massachusetts Boston, Available online at: http://nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=341&Itemid=92

The Carnegie Foundation’s Classification for Community Engagement is an elective classification of Universities seeking recognition of their community engagement efforts. It lasts 5 years. The University of Illinois Urbana Champaign received this classification in 2010 and has reapplied to be re-certified in 2015. Included on the webpage is a brief definition of community engagement for purposes of the classification.

Smith, M. K. (2001) ‘Community’ in the encyclopedia of informal education,http://www.infed.org/community/community.htm.

Donna Jo McCloskey, Mary Anne McDonald,  Jennifer Cook, Suzanne Heurtin-Roberts, Stephen Updegrove, Dana Sampson, Sheila Gutter, Milton Eder (2011) Chapter 1: Community Engagement: Definitions and Organizing Concepts from the Literature, In: Principles of Community Engagement – Second Edition, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Downloaded from: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/communityengagement/pce_intro.html

Keith, N.Z. (2005) Community Service Learning in the Face of Globalization: Rethinking Theory and Practice Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 5-24 Permalink:http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3239521.0011.201

Distinguishing Outreach From Engagement, National Alliance for Media Arts + Culture. Available for download from: http://www.namac.org/idea-exchange/arts-engage-jesikah-maria-ross-community-outreach-engagement

International Association for Public Participation core values and engagement spectrum often serve as a foundational reference for engagement and public participation in decision-making processes. http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.iap2.org/resource/resmgr/imported/IAP2%20Spectrum_vertical.pdf

Ryan Messmore (2011) Individuals and Communities: No Man Is an Island. Available online at: http://dailysignal.com/2011/10/25/individuals-and-communities-no-man-is-an-island/

A fellow from The Heritage Foundation reflects on the need to recognize the social aspect of individuals.

Stoecker, R.. Is Community Informatics Good for Communities? Questions Confronting an Emerging Field. The Journal of Community Informatics, North America, 1, jun. 2005. Available at: http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/183/129.

Stoecker, R. and Beckman, M. (2009) Making Higher Education Civic Engagement Matter in the Community, Campus Compact. Downloaded from: http://www.compact.org/news/making-higher-education-civic-engagement-matter-in-the-community/9748/

Our Growing Understanding of Community Engagement by Tamarack, An Institute for Community Engagement. Downloaded from: http://tamarackcommunity.ca/downloads/home/ce_report.pdf

Public Engagement: A Primer for Public Agenda, 2008. Available online at: http://www.publicagenda.org/files/public_engagement_primer.pdf

Since its inception in 1975, Public Agenda has been working around the country to create the conditions for greater community engagement with public life and a more citizen-centered approach to politics. In this document we offer a brief summary of the essential elements of our evolving approach to this work. This summary is organized around the following themes:

• Public Engagement: Creating Civic Capacity for Public Problem Solving
• Ten Core Principles of Public Engagement
• Examples of Key Practices and Strategies
• The Power of “Citizen Choicework

Section 2. Understanding and Describing the Community, from The Community Toolbox, a service of the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas. Section downloaded from: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/describe-the-community/main

Blackshaw, Tony. (2010). Setting the Record Straight: What is Community? And What does it Mean Today? In: Key Concepts in Community Studies. Sage Publications.

This chapter looks at the transformation of the use and understanding of community as a concept, from the pre-modern community through modern society to today’s use as weak ontologies.

Gawande, A. (2013) Slow Ideas, The New Yorker. Downloaded from: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/29/slow-ideas

Hiram E. Fitzgerald, Karen Bruns, Steven T. Sonka, Andrew Furco, and Louis Swanson (2012) The Centrality of Engagement in Higher Education.  Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Volume 16, Number 3. Available online at: http://outreach.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/the_centrality_of_engagement_in_higher_education.pdf

Abstract:
The centrality of engagement is critical to the success of higher education in the future. Engagement is essential to most effectively achieving the overall purpose of the university, which is focused on the knowledge enterprise. Today’s engagement is scholarly, is an aspect of learning and discovery, and enhances society and higher education. Undergirding today’s approach to community engagement is the understanding that not all knowledge and expertise resides in the academy, and that both expertise and great learning opportunities in teaching and scholarship also reside in non-academic settings. By recommitting to their societal contract, public and land-grant universities can fulfill their promise as institutions that produce knowledge that benefits society and prepares students for productive citizenship in a democratic society. This new engagement also posits a new framework for scholarship that moves away from emphasizing products to emphasizing impact.

Aldo Leopold (1949) The Land Ethic. In A Sand County Almanac. Chapter available online at: http://www.waterculture.org/uploads/Leopold_TheLandEthic.pdf

In this concluding chapter of his classic A Sand County Almanac, Leopold proposes that a concept of community that includes a land ethic:

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise that the individual is a member of a
community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in
that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that
there may be a place to compete for).

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters,
plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

Randy Stoecker (2004) The Mystery of the Missing Social Capital and the Ghost of Social Structure: Why Community Development Can’t Win. In Silverman, Robert Mark (ed.) Community-Based Organizations: The Intersection of Social Capital and Local Context in Contemporary Urban Society. Preprint available online at: http://comm-org.wisc.edu/drafts/socialcapitalprepub.htm

Problematizes social capital as an exchange-value form of community and instead champions use-value communities of resistance to address oppressive social structures.

Chaskin, R.J. (2013). Theories of Community. In: Weil, M., Reisch, M., and Ohmer, M.L. (eds) The Handbook of Community Practice, 2nd Edition. Sage Publications, Inc.

Building from a community practice perspective (which I posit is one way of thinking about the LIS profession), this chapter explores different conceptualizations of community (the social basis of community: interaction, identity, and function; community as space and place; community as political unit) and the continuity and change of community and community practice in the 21st century.

Mitchell, T.D. (2008) Traditional vs. Critical Service-Learning: Engaging the Literature to Differentiate Two Models. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 14(2), p 50-65. Permalink: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3239521.0014.205

University public engagement: 20 tips, The Guardian, June, 2013. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/jun/17/university-public-engagement-top-tips

Experts from a #HElivechat share best practice and advice on better engaging the public in university research

Stoecker, R. (2014) What If? AISHE-J 6(1) Downloaded from: http://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-j/article/view/166/277

What if, instead, we consider an entirely different starting point for higher education civic engagement? Rather than using community members to provide an ill-fitting experiential education for our students to learn a perhaps inaccurately theorized form of civic engagement, we use higher education to support and enhance the civic engagement of community members?

Association of College Unions International, What is Community? Downloaded from: http://www.acui.org/content.aspx?menu_id=30&id=298

Brown, P. Who Is The Community?/What Is The Community? Downloaded from: http://www.brown.edu/research/research-ethics/sites/brown.edu.research.research-ethics/files/uploads/Who%20is%20the%20community%20-%20Phil%20Brown_0.pdf

GOALS OF ENGAGEMENT

Séverine Deneulin and Lila Shahani (eds.) An Introduction to the Human Development and Capability Approach: Freedom and Agency.  http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/IDRCBookDetails.aspx?PublicationID=62

Selections from Key Points of Chapters 1-3: “Value judgements lie at the heart of development analysis and policy. However, these value judgements are often not acknowledged. Public policy aims to create and sustain improvements. Different ideas about what should be improved lead to different policies (e.g. poverty reduction policies vary depending on how poverty is defined). In contrast with approaches that seek to improve the national economy, or people’s resources, or their utility, human development argues that people’s well-being should improve. Different policies ensue. The capability approach contains three central concepts: functioning, capability and agency. A functioning is being or doing what people value and have reason to value. A  capability is a person’s freedom to enjoy various functionings — to be or do things that contribute to their well-being. Agency is a person’s ability to pursue and realize goals she values and has reason to value. The human development and capability approach is multi-dimensional, because several things matter at the same time. Well-being cannot be reduced to income, or happiness or any single thing. The human development and capability approach combines a focus on outcomes with a focus on processes. Four key principles are: equity, efficiency, participation, and sustainability. Both human development and neolibralism endorse the idea of freedom, but the former sees freedom as positive freedom, while the latter only sees it in negative terms.”

Donna Jo McCloskey, Mary Anne McDonald, Jennifer Cook, Suzanne Heurtin-Roberts, Stephen Updegrove, Dana Sampson, Sheila Gutter, Milton Eder (2011) Chapter 1: Community Engagement: Definitions and Organizing Concepts from the Literature, In: Principles of Community Engagement – Second Edition, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Downloaded from: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/communityengagement/pce_intro.html

Randy Stoecker (2012) Community-based Research and the Two Forms of Social Change, Journal of Rural Social Sciences, 27(2),  http://www.ag.auburn.edu/auxiliary/srsa/pages/Articles/JRSS%202012%2027%202%2083-98.pdf

ABSTRACT
As community-based research (CBR) takes hold in academic settings, where there is vast expertise in producing research but a dearth of experience in producing practical outcomes, there is a risk that CBR will produce little of consequence. This paper begins by arguing that part of the problem is the result of CBR practitioners assuming that research is, in itself, causal. Yet it is only when research is embedded in an effective overall social change strategy that it matters. The present paper develops a model specifying the role of research in both local and broader social change strategies. The overall model focuses on a community change cycle, based in community organizing, that begins with a participatory effort to diagnose some community condition, then develops a prescription for that condition, followed by an implementation of the prescription and an evaluation of the outcomes. Research can play a role at each stage of the process, but only as part of a broader strategy linking knowledge, action, and power. The paper concludes by showing the kinds of training and community relationships that academics will need to make CBR matter.

Langdon Winner. 1997. Cyberlibertarian myths and the prospects for community. SIGCAS Comput. Soc. 27, 3 (September 1997), 14-19. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/270858.270864

“In sum, my suggestion is not that we need a cybercommunitarian philosophy to counter the excesses of today’s cyberlibertarian obsessions. Instead is a recommendation to take complex communitarian concerns into account when faced with personal choices and social policies about technological innovation. Superficially appealing uses of new technology become much more problematic when regarded as seeds of evolving, long term practices. Such practices, we know, eventually become parts of consequential social relationships. Those relationships eventually solidify as lasting institutions. And, of course, such institutions are what provide much of the actual framework for how we live together. That suggests that even the most seemingly inconsequential applications and uses of innovations in networked computing be scrutinized and judged in the light of what could be important moral and political consequences. In the broadest spectrum of awareness about these matters we need to ask: Are the practices, relationships and institutions affected by people’s involvement with networked computing ones we wish foster? Or are they ones we must try to modify or even oppose?”

David Golumbia (2013) Cyberlibertarians’ Digital Deletion of the Left, Jacobin Magazine. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/12/cyberlibertarians-digital-deletion-of-the-left/

“At bottom, cyberlibertarianism holds that society’s problems can be solved by simply construing them as engineering and software problems. Not only is this false, but in many ways, it can make the problems worse.”

Digital Justice Coalition Principles. Downloaded from http://detroitdjc.org/?page_id=9

Core principles for digital justice that have informed the work in Detroit, MI.

The Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI), Pluralizing the Archival Curriculum Group (PACG) (2011) Educating for the Archival Multiverse. The American Archivist, 74(1), 69-101. http://www.metapress.com/content/hv339647l2745684/

Ethical principles to guide education of future archival engagement practitioners and researchers from a perspective of pluralism to achieve greater diversity and cultural sensitivity.

Mark C. J. Stoddart (2007) Ideology, Hegemony, Discourse: A Critical Review of Theories of Knowledge and Power, Social Thought & Research, Vol. 28, Social “Movements” Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/23252126

Abstract
For over a century, social theorists have attempted to explain why those who lack economic power consent to hierarchies of social and political power. They have used ideology, hegemony and discourse as key concepts to explain the intersections between the social production of knowledge and the perpetuation of power relations. The Marxist concept of ideology describes how the dominant ideas within a given society reflect the interests of a ruling economic class. In this paper, I trace the movement from this concept of ideology to models of hegemony and discourse. I then trace a second set of ruptures in theories of ideology, hegemony and discourse. Marx and others link ideology to a vision of society dominated by economic class as a field of social power. However, theorists of gender and “race” have questioned the place of class as the locus of power. I conclude by arguing that key theorists of gender and “race”—Hall, Smith, hooks and Haraway—offer a more complex understanding of how our consent to networks of power is produced within contemporary capitalist societies. This argument has important implications for theory and practice directed at destabilizing our consent to power.

Maria Lugones (2003) Introduction. In Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions.

Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013) Learning the Grammar of Animacy. In Braiding Sweetgrass: indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. 

Many good sources champion a need to embrace epistemological pluralism. I have found Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing extraordinarily helpful in thinking through what this means in practice as she explores the need for a synapse-firing experience as our whole world is turned upside down through something as seemingly simple as learning a different language.

Maria Lugones (2003) On the Logic of Pluralist Feminism. In Pilgrimages: Theorizing Coalition against Multiple Oppressions.

Bharat Mehra, Kevin S. Rioux, and Kendra S. Albright (2010) Social Justice in Library and Information Science, Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Third Edition. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120044526

Abstract
This entry presents an overview of social justice vocabularies, conceptualizations, and philosophies as they are represented in the history of library and information science (LIS) practice and research. Emphasis is placed on theoretical descriptions of both justice and social justice, and how these constructs are historically related to past and emerging trends in the LIS professions, with a main focus on social justice in regard to public library philosophy and practice in the United States. The entry also includes a discussion of information science research as it relates to the needs of disadvantaged populations.

Reisch, M., Ife, J., and Weil, M. (2013). Social Justice, Human Rights, Values, and Community Practice In: Weil, M., Reisch, M., and Ohmer, M.L. (eds) The Handbook of Community Practice, 2nd Edition. Sage Publications, Inc.

Martin Wolske (2014) Technology Education and Social Justice, http://mwolske.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/technology-education-and-social-justice/

Yingqin Zheng and Bernd Carsten Stahl (2011) Technology, capabilities and critical perspectives: what can critical theory contribute to Sen’s capability approach? Ethics and Information Technology, 13(2) http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9264-8

Abstract: This paper explores what insights can be drawn from critical theory to enrich and strengthen Sen’s capability approach in relation to technology and human development. The two theories share some important commonalities: both are concerned with the pursuit of ‘‘a good life’’; both are normative theories rooted in ethics and meant to make a difference, and both are interested in democracy. The paper provides a brief overview of both schools of thought and their applications to technology and human development. Three areas are identified where critical theory can make a contribution to the capability approach: conceptually, by providing a critical account of individual agency and enriching the concept of technology beyond the simplistic notion of commodities; methodologically, by sensitising towards reification and hegemony of scientific tools, and, finally, by emphasising reflexivity of researchers.

Dorothea Kleine (2011) The capability approach and the ‘medium of choice’: steps towards conceptualising information and communication technologies for development, Ethics and Information Technology, 13(2). http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-010-9251-5#

Abstract: Amartya Sen’s capability approach has become increasingly popular in development studies. This paper identifies controllability and operationalisability as two key stumbling blocks which prevent the capability approach from being used even more widely in development practice. It discusses the origins and application of the Choice Framework, a conceptual tool designed to help operationa- lise the approach. The framework can be used to deconstruct embedded ideologies and analyse the appropriateness of development goals, to map development as a systemic process, and to plan interventions which can result in increased freedom of choice for people. Three examples of the application of the Choice Framework in the field of information and communication for development (ICT4D) are given. The three technologies which are examined, telecentres (Infocentros), Chilecompra and Fair Tracing, can be placed at different places of a determinism continuum, some reducing the spectrum of choices a user has. The paper argues that while frameworks such as the Choice Framework can be developed further to increase the operationalisability of the capability approach, it is up to development funders to accept the fact that people’s choices are never fully pre- dictable and thus Sen’s ‘development as freedom’ will inevitably be a dynamic and open-ended process.

The Common Good, Developed by Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer, Downloaded from: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/commongood.html#sthash.LkGctKZS.dpuf

Bindé, Jérôme (2005) Towards knowledge societies, UNESCO world report. Available online at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=141843

“Knowledge societies are about capabilities to identify, produce, process, transform, disseminate and use information to build and apply knowledge for human development. They require an empowering social vision that encompasses plurality, inclusion, solidarity, and participation. (pg. 27)”

Honma, Todd (2005) Trippin’ Over the Color Line: The Invisibility of Race in Library and Information Studies, InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 1(2)http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nj0w1mp

Gerhard Fischer (2011) Understanding, Fostering, and Supporting Cultures of Participation. Interactions, 18(3). Available online at: http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/2011/interactions-coverstory.pdf

“The major role for new media and new technologies from a culture-of-participation perspective is not to deliver predigested information and non-changeable artifacts and tools to individuals, but rather to provide the opportunity and resources for engaging them in authentic activities, for participating in social debates and discussions, for creating shared understanding among diverse stakeholders, and for framing and solving personally meaningful problems.”

Stoecker, R. (2014) What If? AISHE-J 6(1) Downloaded from: http://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-j/article/view/166/277

What if, instead, we consider an entirely different starting point for higher education civic engagement? Rather than using community members to provide an ill-fitting experiential education for our students to learn a perhaps inaccurately theorized form of civic engagement, we use higher education to support and enhance the civic engagement of community members?

METHODS AND PRINCIPLES FOR ENGAGEMENT

Anne Bishop (2002) Becoming an Ally: Breaking the Cycle of Oppression in People, 2nd Edition.

NOTE: a third edition is coming out in 2015 but unlikely will be available before we cover the book in class. However, the most revised part is a new chapter 9, Educating Allies, which has been made available online at: http://www.becominganally.ca/Becoming_an_Ally/Educating_Allies__Ch.html

From the back cover: “This book is my attempt to answer some of the big questions of my life: Where does oppression come from? Has it always been with us, just “human naute”? What can we do to change it? What does individual ehaling have to do with struggles for social justice? What does social justice have to do with individual healing? Why do members of oppressed groups fight each other? Why do some who experience oppression develop a life-long commitment to fighting oppression, while others turn aournd and oppress others? This book will help answer these and other relevant questions.”

Bishop, A., Bruce, B.C., and Jeong, S. (2012) Beyond Service Learning: Toward Community Schools and Reflective Community Learners. In: Loriene Roy, Kelly Jensen, & Alex Hershey Meyers (eds.), Service learning: Linking library education and practice (pp. 16-31). Chicago, IL: ALA Editions. http://eblackcu.net/portal/items/show/1271

Cricket Keating (2005) Building Coalitional Consciousness. NWSA Journal, 17(2), 86-103. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4317127

In this essay, I argue for the practice of “coalitional consciousness-building,” a method of self and collective education toward coalition. The approach itself is based on the radical democratic practice of femi- nist consciousness-raising, yet reconfigures the method in several ways in light of critiques by women-of-color feminists. In particular, I draw upon the insights of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Maria Lugones, and Bernice Johnson Reagon as well as upon examples of approaches used by consciousness-raising groups that had success in engendering solidarity across multiple lines of difference to suggest a process of coalitional consciousness-building. The process includes the following three steps: (1) sharing experiences related to a theme in a way that pays close atten- tion to the national, racial, and class and other relevant contexts and histories in which the experiences being articulated are being played out; (2) examining the experiences with an eye for the multiple relations of oppression and resistance at play; (3) exploring the barriers to, and possibilities for, coalitional action with regardto the experiences. Such a practice, I argue, could help contribute to the development of a feminist movement culture that is oriented toward the work of building and sustaining coalition.

Donna Jo McCloskey, Mary Anne McDonald, Jennifer Cook, Suzanne Heurtin-Roberts, Stephen Updegrove, Dana Sampson, Sheila Gutter, Milton Eder (2011) Chapter 1: Community Engagement: Definitions and Organizing Concepts from the Literature, In: Principles of Community Engagement – Second Edition, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Downloaded from: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/communityengagement/pce_intro.html

Matt Leighninger (2010) Creating Spaces for Change: Working Towards a ‘Story of Now’ in Civic Engagement. http://www.wkkf.org/resource-directory/resource/2010/creating-spaces-for-change

“In 2008 the foundation launched a “learning year,” featuring a dialogue among 40 organizations from across the country, all committed to civic engagement, albeit using a variety of approaches, with a variety of objectives. The outcome was a rich, often challenging, always enlightening conversation about civic engagement means, goals and terminology, among practitioners too often siloed by their field or their network.

Commissioned by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and written by Matt Leighninger of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, this paper reviews that conversation and extends an invitation to both deliberative democracy and dialogue practitioners and to community organizers to continue it. In doing so, it invites civic engagement practitioners from diverse schools of thought to raise and tackle tough, important questions; to deepen their mutual understanding of other practices and approaches, and of the values underlying and unifying their work; and to propose ideas for working together more effectively, and with greater impact.”

Sorensen, J. and Lawson, L. (2011) Evolution in Partnership: Lessons from the East St. Louis Action Research Project. Action Research, 10(2), 150-169. Downloaded from:http://arj.sagepub.com/content/10/2/150.

John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight (1993) Introduction to Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets http://www.abcdinstitute.org/docs/abcd/GreenBookIntro.pdf

The ABCD approach developed by Kretzmann and McKnight has informed much community development work since its introduction in 1993.

Libraries Transforming Communities Toolkit
http://www.ala.org/transforminglibraries/libraries-transforming-communities/resources-for-library-professionals

From the website:

The tools below are designed to help libraries strengthen their roles as community leaders and bring about positive change in their communities.

“Turning outward” is a step-by-step process developed by The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. It entails taking steps to better understand communities; changing processes and thinking to make conversations more community-focused; being proactive to community issues; and putting community aspirations first.

Taken together, these resources provide a 90-day plan to help your library “turn outward.”

-Outcome-based Evaluation
Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Outcome-based Evaluation

• Introduction online at:  http://www.imls.gov/applicants/outcome_based_evaluations.aspx
• Basics online at:  http://www.imls.gov/applicants/basics.aspx
• Purposes online at:  http://www.imls.gov/applicants/purposes.aspx

Paulo Freire (2011) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition

First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire’s work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm.

Bertram C. Bruce and Naomi Bloch (2013) Pragmatism and Community Inquiry: A Case Study of Community-Based Learning. Education and Culture, 29(1) 27-45. Available online at: http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/eandc/vol29/iss1/art4/

ABSTRACT This paper develops a philosophical basis for the concept of community inquiry. Community inquiry derives from pragmatist theory as articulated by Dewey, Peirce, Addams, and others. Following Brendel, we discuss pragmatism in terms of its emphasis on the practical dimensions of inquiry, the pluralistic nature of the tools that are used to study phenomena, the participatory role of individuals with different perspectives, and the provisional nature of inquiry. We then apply this framework in a case study of community inquiry in an urban agriculture project. The example shows how learning occurs both within and beyond the school, and how education can be more connected to community life.

Kelvin L. White and Anne J. Gilliland (2010) Promoting Reflexivity and Inclusivity in Archival Education, Research, and Practice. The Library Quarterly, 80(3). Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/652874 .

“The area of archival studies today transcends the professional field of archival science. It encompasses an ever-broadening array of disciplinary discussions and methodological approaches that are identifying, critiquing, and addressing the shifting social, cultural, philosophical, and political, as well as the technological, imperatives of record keeping and remembering in the twenty-first century. Reporting on two recent research projects and three ongoing educational initiatives, this article suggests ways in which research and education in archival studies can play a central role in promoting more reflexive and inclusive ideas, practices, and research, not only within the archival profession, but also within the various library and information science (LIS) and iSchool settings in which archival education and research might be situated.”

Richard Milner IV (2007) Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality: Working through Dangers Seen, Unseen, and Unforeseen. Educational Researcher, 36(7) Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/30136070

Abstract: This author introduces a framework to guide researchers into a process of racial and cultural awareness, consciousness, and positionality as they conduct education research. The premise of the argument is that dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen can emerge for researchers when they do not pay careful attention to their own and others’ racialized and cultural systems of coming to know, knowing, and experiencing the world. Education research is used as an analytic site for discussion throughout this article, but the framework may be transferable to other academic disciplines. After a review of literature on race and culture in education and an outline of central tenets of critical race theory, a nonlinear framework is introduced that focuses on several interrelated qualities: researching the self, researching the self in relation to others, engaged reflection and representation, and shifting from the self to system.

Katherine Rose Adams (2014) The Exploration of Community Boundary Spanners in University–Community Partnerships. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 18(3). http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/view/1293

Boundary-spanning is a role that has been recently explored with regard to University-community partnerships, but primarily from the perspective of the University. This article further explores the concept but from the perspective of community organizations. After reviewing this article, I think it would be interesting to further explore the role of boundary-spanning from the perspective of library-community engagement.

Lisa Wyatt Knowlton and Cynthia C. Phillips (2013) The Logic Model Guidebook, 2nd Edition. Sage Publishing

• Chapter 1 online at: http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/23937_Chapter_1___Introducing_Logic_Models.pdf
• Chapter 3 online at: http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/23938_Chapter_3___Creating_Program_Logic_Models.pdf

The Logic Model Guidebook offers clear, step-by-step support for creating logic models and the modeling process in a range of contexts. Lisa Wyatt Knowlton and Cynthia C. Phillips describe the structures, processes, and language of logic models as a robust tool to improve the design, development, and implementation of program and organization change efforts. The text is enhanced by numerous visual learning guides (sample models, checklists, exercises, worksheets) and many new case examples. The authors provide students, practitioners, and beginning researchers with practical support to develop and improve models that reflect knowledge, practice, and beliefs. The Guidebook offers a range of new applied examples. The text includes logic models for evaluation, discusses archetypes, and explores display and meaning. In an important contribution to programs and organizations, it emphasizes quality by raising issues like plausibility, feasibility, and strategic choices in model creation.

Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic and Mary Anne Kennan (2013) The Methodological Landscape: Information Systems and Knowledge Management. In Research Methods: Information, Systems and Contexts.

While especially directed at researchers, this chapter importantly clarifies the different meta-theoretical assumptions that underly research paradigms. It further considers how these often unconscious metaphysics influence how we see and research the world. I would argue that many of our arguments today about whether or not there is evidence for events boil down to different unconsidered meta-theoretical assumptions informing our understanding of the world around us.

Gerhard Fischer (2011) Understanding, Fostering, and Supporting Cultures of Participation. Interactions, 18(3). Available online at: http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/2011/interactions-coverstory.pdf

“The major role for new media and new technologies from a culture-of-participation perspective is not to deliver predigested information and non-changeable artifacts and tools to individuals, but rather to provide the opportunity and resources for engaging them in authentic activities, for participating in social debates and discussions, for creating shared understanding among diverse stakeholders, and for framing and solving personally meaningful problems.”

Andrea Smith (2013) Unsettling the Privilege of Self-Reflexivity. In france winddance twine and bradley gardener (eds.) Geographies of Privilege.

Unconsidered, self-reflexivity can become self-help political projects rather than a truly transformative exercise with the goal of ending whiteness as a social structure and as an identity in which white anti-racists organize their work.

LIBRARIES AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Community-Led Libraries Toolkit! Available online at: http://www.librariesincommunities.ca/?p=23

“We are pleased to announce the publication of the Community-Led Libraries Toolkit, which shares the experiences and lessons learned by the Working Together Project over the past four years. The library should be an expression of its community’s vision and creativity; this can only happen if we involve them actively in decision-making and planning”

Roger E. Levien (2011) Confronting the Future: Strategic Visions for the 21st-Century Public Library. ALA Policy Brief #4. Available online at: http://www.ala.org/offices/sites/ala.org.offices/files/content/oitp/publications/policybriefs/confronting_the_futu.pdf

From the summary: “The changes confronting public libraries over the next 30 years will be profound, just as those of the past 30 years have been. That libraries have responded so effectively thus far is encouraging, yet it appears that they will have to face even more difficult challenges in the future. The choices described in this policy brief respond to the possible outcomes of the economic, social, and technological forces and trends that will affect libraries. Yet they all assume that public libraries will continue to exist. Unfortunately, it is not impossible to imagine a future without libraries. If that is to be avoided so that libraries can continue to fulfill their role as guarantors of free and unbiased access to information, they must play an active role in shaping their future.”

Kranich, Nancy (2012) Libraries and Civic Engagement. Information Today. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3VX0DWS

“Description: Libraries have long played an important role in the civic life of their communities and organizations. Today, they are more involved than ever convening community conversations, building civic literacy, educating a new generation of citizens, and engaging constituents in issues of common concern. This article provides an overview of the role of libraries in civic engagement, the state of public participation in American life, an historical survey of library involvement, and current opportunities for all types of libraries to partner and participate in civic life.”

Libraries Transforming Communities is an initiative of the American Library Association and the Harwood Institute funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. More about the initiative and resources for libraries can be found at: http://www.ala.org/transforminglibraries/libraries-transforming-communities

IMLS (2009) Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills. Available online at: http://www.imls.gov/assets/1/AssetManager/21stCenturySkills.pdf

“This project underscores the critical role of our nation’s museums and libraries in helping citizens build such 21st century skills as information, communications and technology literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, civic literacy, and global awareness.”

Dudley, Michael. Public Libraries and Resilient Cities. 2012. American Library Association Editions. ISBN-10: 0838911366; ISBN-13: 978-0838911365 (Chapter 1 attached)

“In the midst of an economic and technological “perfect storm,” the public library is increasingly being seen as a keystone institution in addressing a number of significant and pressing urban and environmental sustainability issues. Libraries are evolving sustainable urban design practices, ecologically sensitive procurement processes, contributing to local economic development, and adapting to rapidly changing conditions, all while maintaining a strong commitment to social equity… This book…situates the public library in terms of urban planning concepts as well as current thinking on sustainability issues, and shares success stories in resiliency from library and planning practitioners.”

Edwards, Julie Biando, Robinson, Melissa S. , and Unger, Kelley Rae. Transforming Libraries, Building Communities: The Community-Centered Library. 2013. Scarecrow Press. ISBN-10: 0810891816; ISBN-13: 978-0810891814.

From the jacket cover: “Edwards, Robinson, and Unger characterize the benefits of collaboration as helping to build human and social capital. They note that resilient community-centered librarians often find themselves in a position to create partnerships that extend their sphere of influence, recognizing that all are assets — individuals and partner agencies from city planners to union members. This book is a rich and thoughtful compilation of past achievements, contemporary successes, and future pathways that lodge the public library as a societal anchor and key to the engagement of people in the life of their communities.

Transforming libraries, building Communities argues that focusing on innovative and responsive services and programming is the best way for the public library to reposition itself as an active center for a vibrant community. Although accessing information will always be at the heart of what library patrons do, the role of librarians has evolved. Libraries create community and also mini-communities–everything from book groups to writing circles to new citizen groups to linguistic and ethnic communities. These mini-communities provide fellowship and foster relationships among group members while helping the larger community recognize and learn how the mini-communities enrich the larger.