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Reinventing the Community Information Professional: Strategies and Approaches Used to Develop Community Networking Knowledge Joan C. Durrance, Professor INTRODUCTION Community Networks (CNs) and Libraries/Librarians Across the nation, community by community, local CNs are being invented. They aim to provide information and communication vehicles for their communities. (Schuler; Beamish) Collectively CNs provide a widely differing array of services for the communities in which they have been developed. First-generation community networks, including the well-known Free-Nets, were text based. The first use that pioneering Free-Nets made of libraries was to provide access to public library Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs)--an act which reinforced the thinking among many that OPACs were all that libraries had to offer to CNs. While many first generation CNs are still in operation, rapidly changing technology has resulted in the development of CNs which make use of the emerging information technologies. In the 1990s the rapid spread of the World Wide Web beyond universities and researchers has shown the potential of the WWW to change the way people get and use information. WWW development is spawning an explosion of second-generation community networks (CNs) based on cutting-edge information technologies. An examination of CNs shows that many are still in the early stages of creation and have not yet begun to fulfill the promises implicit in the information technology. Community information professionals are developing knowledge which can help in the invention of these emerging CNs. Assumptions Behind this Paper   The power of the World Wide Web has created unprecedented opportunities for the development of community networks.   CNs, the fore-runners of tele-communities, are still in their infancy and thus are in the process of being invented.   CNs will be more effective organizations if the skills of information professionals are applied to them.   CN developers often fail to recognize that librarians as information professionals are equipped to make strong contributions to CNs.   Librarians have professional skills transferable to the digital environment; they are adding to their knowledge approaches which effectively exploit new information technologies.   Library and information science educators, often working collaboratively with other disciplines, are restructuring professional education; the CN is one of a number of information environments which can benefit from the knowledge of information professionals. The University of Michigan School of Information The University of Michigan School of Information faculty believe that "information professionals will play an increasingly vital role in empowering individuals, communities, and organizations to capture the promise of the information age. The School of Information embraces a vision that harmonizes people, information systems, and organizations to improve the quality of life. Our mission is to discover the principles and concepts that will enable society to realize this vision, to design the technologies, systems, and practices that will substantiate the vision, and to educate new generations of professionals who will put that vision into place." (Mission Statement, 1996). The SI Mission statement, part of which appears above, frames the discussion of approaches to responding to the needs of communities which are described below. The UM-SI Community Networking Initiative The University of Michigan School of Information Community Networking (UM-SI CN) Initiative is designed to develop information professionals capable of adding value to CNs. It seeks to carry out the following roles:   Conducting research to advance knowledge about community networks   Helping the field articulate the skills needed by those who create and maintain CNs   Exploring the changing roles of information professionals   Developing appropriate curricula and other means to support developing CNs   Developing collaborative relationships with community networks After a brief introduction to the UM-SI CRISTAL-ED program, of which the CN Initiative is a part, this paper will describe some of the efforts being undertaken at the University of Michigan to develop the skills of community information professionals. Practical Engagement Opportunities at the University of Michigan School of Information The University of Michigan School of Information is in the midst of a major curriculum change, seeking to develop and apply principles and approaches that will enable information professionals to lead in the information age. "The research and instructional programs at the School will have a strong component of practical engagement with private enterprises, not-for-profit institutions, libraries, schools, and communities to address the pressing social and technological problems of information management, access and use. The School's aim is to integrate this larger community tightly into its instruction." (UM-SI Mission Statement). This strong commitment to practical is characterized by the SI's Dean Daniel Atkins, "The School is committed to a professional curriculum and to doctoral preparation that integrates classroom training, advanced technology, and actual practice in real organizational settings. This fundamental integration of practice and theory is unprecedented in both what we want to teach and how we want to teach it. It is what we want our professional students to embody and our doctoral students to propagate." In SI's new curriculum each student will complete between six and fifteen credit hours of practical engagement as part of the 48 credit hour program. This requirement can be met through a variety of options. The development of this approach to incorporating practical engagement has been greatly enhanced through a generous grant to the School of Information from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The UM-SI CN Initiative is one of several projects being developed at the University of Michigan under the auspices of a major five-year grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation known as the Coalition on Reinventing Information Science, Technology, and Library Education (CRISTAL-ED). Several SI living laboratory projects which employ practical engagement are designed to bring realistic learning experiences to students, faculty, and practitioners through the application of computer technology to problem solving. The UM-SI CN Initiative uses practical engagement to provide students with opportunities to apply, reinforce, and master skills and knowledge from previous learning experiences in actual settings. It also provides ample opportunity for learning (often unanticipated, but extremely valuable) to occur as a result of working in the community living laboratory setting. Learning is framed within a set of strategies designed to add value to community networks. Through my study of community information services over several years, I have identified strategies that librarians can use to work effectively with community information seekers. (Durrance, 1984, 1993, 1994). As a result of more recent research on community networks, I have identified several major families of strategies which can help information professionals make strong contributions to emerging community networks. In the process, they may effectively collaborate to invent a new generation of CNs. The remainder of this paper is in two major sections. The first will discuss the strategies and what they can do to strengthen CNs. This section will include some examples of the application of these strategies. The final portion of the paper will focus on the approaches used by the UM-SI CN Initiative to carry out these strategies. Top of page | Next page | CN Home | CN Conferences and Papers