October 19, 2021
Developing a community lab model for use in public libraries in Washington Libraries to combat misinformation and threats to democracy.
The Community Archives Center for Tacoma
Bringing community members and organizations together to broaden participation and inclusion within cultural heritage collections.
Mapping eInclusion Actors in the European Union
June 22, 2021
What type of organizations are part of the eInclusion landscape in Europe? What services they provide and to what target groups? How do they collect user data and for what purposes?
Digital Skills for Digital Librarians Evaluation
June 21, 2021
How can web literacy trainings be used in libraries to meet the evolving needs of the communities they serve? How can these trainings be adapted and scaled to better help library staff, libraries, and the communities they serve?
Public Libraries as Platforms for Civic Engagement
May 4, 2021
What role should the world’s public libraries have in civic engagement? In recent years, traditional media have weakened, the civic space has become increasingly divisive, and society has become ever more divided socially, economically and politically, yet public libraries have stood strong. They have long fulfilled a vital need for communal spaces where people can…
The use of participatory mapping in ethnobiological research, biocultural conservation, and community empowerment: a case study from the Peruvian Amazon
April 29, 2021
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Volunteer geographic information in the Global South: barriers to local implementation of mapping projects across Africa
The world is awash in data—by 2020 it is expected that there will be approximately 40 trillion gigabytes of data in existence, with that number doubling every 2 to 3 years. However, data production is not equal in all places—the global data landscape remains heavily concentrated on English-speaking, urban, and relatively affluent locations within the…
Data challenges for public libraries: African perspectives and the social context of knowledge
This article sheds light on the collection and use of data by libraries in sixteen countries across Africa. It highlights the challenges that librarians and library organizations face in gathering, analyzing, and presenting data of various types for self-advocacy. In this study, qualitative data from a meeting of library representatives was analyzed to identify main…
Public Libraries and Development Across Sub-Saharan Africa: Overcoming a Problem of Perception
Public libraries and development organizations share many common goals that make them strong potential partners in the Global South. In spite of these commonalities, libraries are often overlooked as development partners. This is unfortunate because these partnerships could allow librarians to more fully and effectively participate in the development of their communities. This paper explores…
From access to information to access to each other: Why libraries should develop innovation spaces
We will argue that libraries, in optimizing how they deploy computer and internet technology for people to meet their information needs, have unknowingly overlooked and even inhibited the use of computers for the purposes of creativity and innovation. Specifically, we suggest that there is a vast and unmet demand for physical environments, built around the…
