Community Networking Initiative
Shows Immediate Results
The Flint Community Networking Initiative is the first community living laboratory funded by the Kellogg CRISTAL-ED proposal. The Kellogg funding provided the impetus for the development of a collaboratively funded $600,000, multi-year project which officially started with the dedication on March 10, 1995, of the Community Networking and Training Center at the Flint (Michigan) Public Library.
Two-hundred Flint area citizens attended the ribbon cutting and presentation on the future of community networks by Steve Cisler, internationally known expert in community networking and director of the Apple Library of Tomorrow (ALOT) Program. ALOT has selected the project as one of its official sites.
Funders, in addition to the School of Information, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Apple Library of Tomorrow Program include:
- The Community Stabilization and Revitalization Project (CSR)
- The Library of Michigan
- The Flint Public Library
- The Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative.
The nature of a community network is that it must be collaborative. Hence the funding model reflects the model for the project.
SI Associate Professor Joan C. Durrance is the principal Investigator for the Flint Community Networking Initiative. Sheryl Cormicle Knox was hired in February 1995 as the local project director and trainer. The project coordinating team consists of Gloria Coles, director of the Flint Public Library; Charles Hansen, assistant director of the FPL; Sara Behrman, director of the Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative; John Coleman, project officer, CSR; Durrance and Knox.
As a prelude to the Flint Community Networking Initiative, in the fall of 1994, CSR funded an extensive Internet training project for 30 librarians both from the Flint Public Library and from area public and academic libraries. Between September and December, training was held at the University of Michigan-Flint campus computing laboratory. Unfortunately the U-M Flint facility did not permit easy access to the World Wide Web and practice time during this period was limited due to the need by U-M Flint to give priority to enrolled students. The opening of the new lab has provided the infrastructure to continue preparing the Flint area librarians to assume a leadership role in the development of the emerging community network. At present the librarians in the training group are being trained in the creation of World Wide Web-based documents which add relevant resources to the WWW. Trainees will serve as auxiliary Internet/WWW trainers in future months. The lab will also be used periodically for basic Internet workshops which are part of the new Library of Michigan Internet Training Initiative. In addition, librarians who wish to develop Internet services tour the lab and seek advice.
The aims of this project are to:
- Create an information infrastructure which will foster a viable community civic network built on emerging information technologies
- Provide extensive training to a core group of librarians who will act as trainers of librarians, community leaders and a cadre of volunteer trainers
- Develop a sustainable approach to information delivery that is supported by the strengths of the public library (free to all, a public forum, provision of a wide variety of resources in an organized way)
- Create a living laboratory which will inform and educate information professionals in the 21st century
- Revolutionize the way public libraries and the professionals who practice in them provide information to their communities and think about their practice.
Milestones in the first months of the initiative included:
- The design and implementation of an extensive Internet/World Wide Web Training Project for 30 Flint area librarians
- External evaluation of the training
- Hiring of a trainer/coordinator of the project
- The development of the information infrastructure at the Flint Public Library necessary for WWW access which incorporates the first joint Merit/Ameritech ISDN installation, 18 linked Power Macintoshes, and supporting equipment and software; the vision for this space and equipment is that it will become a friendly meeting place which provides public access to the Internet, facilities for training a wide range of users, and a studio for the creation of community information resources.
- Acquisition of a full complement of multimedia creation tools, such as a digital camera, audio equipment, video cameras, and a scanner.
- Dedication of the center on March 10, 1995 with an overflow crowd. Many Flint citizens saw the World Wide Web site for the first time.
- Development of a support library of software and documentation with supplemental funds
- Presentations in the Flint area: such as a presentation May 14 before the Flint Board of Education
- Presentation of a paper at the international community networking conference: Ties That Bind: Community Networking Conference May 2-5, 1995, Cupertino, California
- Involvement of the spring 1995 Community Networking Class in working with selected Flint area non-profits and agencies with the aim of involving community groups in the development of the community network
