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Information Communities
Workshop
Best Practice Case Study Examples
Geographic Communities as Information
Communities
Community
Resource Database of Long Island
The Community Resource Database (CRD)
was initiated in 1989 by a consortium of public and private community agencies
in Suffolk County. With funds gathered from a New York State member item
grant, county government, private foundations and the library, it developed
gradually from a small database focused on services to children and families
to an extensive resource that includes information on a wide range of health
and human services. (For more information please refer to our CRD profile.)
Community Networks
The Carnegie Library
of Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Free-Net
A fixture of Pittsburgh since 1995, the
Three Rivers Free-Net (TRFN) interacts with Pittsburgh area non-profit
organizations and local governments. TRFN's mission is to facilitate "the
collection, organization and dissemination of Pittsburgh regional information
in a public space." The TRFN website, built with a librarian's eye for
organization, is divided into 20 carefully considered subject areas, ranging
from Cultural Activities to Employment to Social Services. TRFN uses
electronic space to bring together organizations by using an easy to navigate
directory and template design on the website. Its guidelines encourage
community non-profits to identify and link to organizations that do similar
work thus strengthening community ties. Not only does this make it
easier for TRFN users to find what they are looking for, it also helps
unify Pittsburgh's non-profit community. (For more information, please
refer to our TRFN profile.)
NorthStarNet
The NorthStarNet (NSN) community network,
a partnership between the North Suburban
Library System (NSLS) and Suburban
Library Systems (SLS), is designed to help bring Chicago's suburban
communities together in virtual space even though they are dispersed in
physical space. By linking together 124 communities, NorthStarNet makes
life in Chicago's suburbs more cohesive. (For more information, please
refer to our NSN profile.)
CascadeLink
CascadeLink represents an interjurisdictional
effort to gather information, provide a means for citizen involvement,
and to offer online access to citizens living in the Portland, OR/ Vancouver,
WA metropolitan region. The network specifically serves Clackamas, Multnomah
and Washington counties in Oregon and Clark County in Washington.
Focused Information Communities
Making
of Ann Arbor
The 'Making of Ann Arbor' represents an
attempt at developing an information community that transcends the boundaries
that tradionally separate libraries. The public library, the University
of Michigan's Bentley Historical Society, and the University of Michigan
Library have joined forces to bring the community online local history.
This unique example of collaboration is one that builds upon the strengths
of each institution while adding greater value to the community.
An
African American Album: The Black Experience in Charlotte and Mecklenburg
County
An African American Album: The Black Experience
in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County is a short term, focused information
community by way of a digital collection. Working with its African American
community, the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County (NC) digitized
decades of the black experience, the result of which is An African American
Album. It is exhibits such as these that enrich an area’s cultural
tapestry and often reveal for the first time, a geographic area's ethnic
communities.
Information Communities Involving
Multiple Collaborators
LA
as Subject
LA as Subject represents an information
community developed from a partnership between the Getty Research Institute
and twenty-five "lending institutions," including local private collections
as well as universities such as the Claremont Graduate University.
The archives, collections, monuments, and cultural practices included in
this exhibit are all vehicles through which diverse communities and individuals
from the past and present speak to us. L.A. as Subject was a four-year
research project designed to facilitate the critical recovery of historical
narratives about Los Angeles. Its goal was to illuminate diverse and unique
archives and collections and examine their role in the transmission of
cultural values through lectures, symposia, exhibitions, and public forums.
(For more information please refer to our LA as Subject profile.)
H-Net
H-Net is an interdisciplinary organization
of scholars dedicated to developing the enormous educational potential
of the Internet and the World Wide Web. H-Net began in 1992 and grew from
a set of roughly 12 electronic discussion lists in 1993 to 122 discussion
lists (each with a website) plus book reviews, conferences, and training
sessions in 2000. Relying as it does on list editors from all over the
academic world, H-Net is a very unique type of information community. (For
more information please refer to our H-NET profile.)
HealthWeb
HealthWeb is a collaborative project of
the health sciences libraries of the Greater Midwest Region (GMR) of the
National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) and those of the Committee
for Institutional Cooperation. Currently there are over twenty actively
participating member libraries. This project is supported by the National
Library of Medicine (NLM) under contract #N01-LM-6-3523 with the University
of Illinois at Chicago.
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