v
"This site contains
a wealth of information specific to the Portland metro area and is one
of my favorites."
Anonymous Visitor
v
v
"It brings everything
to one location. It's very easy to navigate around in and everything is
right there at your fingertips--it's just right there."
Anonymous Visitor
v
v
"I absolutely
rely on this website for home and work projects. I also refer lots of people
I speak from both out of state and locally, to the web site. It cuts
through all the garbage and gets straight to the heart!"
Anonymous Visitor
v
v
"The county really
supports CascadeLink with all the other partners playing into CascadeLink
and there is a relationship because our role is to organize the information
and to advocate it "
--Donna Reed
CascadeLink
Manager
v
v
"CascadeLink is
really the best place to go to find out about jobs--all the information
is right there. You can find out about benefits, the salary--all on the
web site."
Anonymous Visitor
v
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CascadeLink
Fosters Community Connections
By Karen Scheuerer, Michael
Jourdan, Joan C. Durrance, Karen Pettigrew
Connections Make for a Vital Community
Portland, Oregon represents a rare example
of a city that continually challenges the conventional wisdom that urban
growth is unequivocally good. Especially at a time when most American cities
have expanded with little regard for the hazards of urban sprawl, Portland
has been one city that recognizes the virtues of limited growth. As a result,
while other American cities have become plagued with the problems caused
by urban sprawl, such as smog, poor public transportation, and impoverished
urban centers, Portland, in contrast, is looked to as a model in urban
planning and development. James Howard Kunstler, author of the book
The Geography of Nowhere attributes Portland’s success to its unique emphasis
on the connections and cooperation built between organizations, city institutions
and the city’s inhabitants. Kunstler writes:
Oregonians are acting intelligently
and setting an example in regional land-use policy that the rest of the
nation would do well to heed. In Portland they have a city of which they
deserve to feel proud…[civic-minded Portlanders] understand that the city
is only as good as its connections, and that urban ingredients treated
in isolation have no meaning. (Kunstler, James Howard. Geography of
Nowhere. 1993. p.206)
For decades, Portland’s public servants
have been keenly aware of the need for networking and coalition building
among the city’s institutions and organizations. Without cooperation from
business people, government officials, and non-profits, the city would
not have been as successful implementing its unprecedented urban policy.
One noteworthy innovation is the city’s urban growth boundary, a land-use
plan that strictly marks the boundaries between urban and rural areas in
order to promote the efficient use of urban land, public facilities and
services, while preserving prime farm and forest lands outside the boundary.
That, plus an emphasis on public transportation over automobiles has resulted
in a city with a vibrant downtown and dynamic neighborhoods free of the
smog and gridlock that plague other urban centers. Portland is a city of
proud, distinct neighborhoods that work together to produce a vigorous
city where quality of life is highly regarded.
On our case study visit to Portland, we
discovered that this integrated approach is business as usual for the community’s
library. The Multnomah County Library
operates in the same capacity by building relationships with the other
government agencies, organizations and civic institutions. In fact, while
the library stands at the physical center of the city, CascadeLink (www.cascadelink.org/),
the library supported Community Network, might well be considered its virtual
center.
CascadeLink
is a regional community network that serves Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington
counties in Oregon and Clark County in Washington (Portland’s neighbor
across the Columbia River). It offers community information organized by
subject, covering such topics as Neighborhoods, Jobs, Arts & Entertainment,
and Elections, among others. CascadeLink also features the most widely-used
and standardized community calendar
for the region. In addition, the site links directly to the library's community
organization database (COOL), which provides listings of over 5,500
organizations from throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington. This impressive
collection of resources would not be possible were it not for the position
that the Library has in the Portland community.
To the top
The Library’s Instrumental Role
The Multnomah County Library (MCPL) serves
as a point of convergence for government agencies, non-profit organizations,
and educational institutions in the city. CascadeLink evolved in 1995 out
of meetings among representatives from such important regional institutions
as Metro Regional government, the Multnomah County Library and other area
libraries, Portland State University, Multnomah County, the City of Portland,
Oregon Civic Network Coalition, Portland Office of Neighborhood Associations,
Portland Public Schools, Tualatin Valley Community Access, U.S. Rep. Furse's
office, and US West Communications. But, it was the Multnomah County Library
that spearheaded the charge by hiring a Community Information System Program
Specialist, and launching the project.
 Partnerships Are Central to the Project
How do these partnerships work? For starters,
once a month, a CascadeLink steering committee convenes to discuss the
future direction of the web site. The group is comprised of important community
players, such as government agency staff, civil servants, and representatives
from the school system and regional organizations. According to CascadeLink’s
Reed, involvement by such a wide variety of stakeholders is critical. In
addition to sharing its vision for the future of CascadeLink, the steering
committee works hard to promote and build upon the site. This is accomplished
in a variety of ways. For example, committee members raise CascadeLink’s
profile by linking to the site from their organizations’ pages. In addition,
the group organizes such events as an annual Technology Summit as a way
to invite additional organizations and agencies to the table. Aside from
being a great way to promote the value of this one-stop regional resource,
the summit also provides technology training and planning for area organizations
and businesses.
Bringing so many stakeholders into the
same room each month has resulted in other benefits for the CascadeLink
site and the community at large. A recently launched web site designed
to help Portland area businesses
is a powerful example of this partnership in action. The city developed
this Web portal to provide small business owners with advice on networking
in the business community, as well as training and assistance information,
and examples of business best practices, among other resources. As a result
of participating on the CascadeLink board, the Portland city staff recognize
that the business portal’s audience is CascadeLink’s audience, and vice
versa. The staff members say that they better understand how to represent
and organize information for their audience thanks to lessons they’ve learned
from CascadeLink. Today, CascadeLink prominently links to the new city
business portal. CascadeLink, in turn, fulfills its goals of providing
the community current information created by the experts.
The CascadeLink staff has also played an
important role in developing partnerships between the County
and Portland
State University as they explore ways in which to make Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) data more accessible to the public. Ultimately,
CascadeLink staff are working toward making it possible for Web users to
be able to download demographic and environmental based maps from their
computers. This could enable community groups and citizens to demonstrate
problem areas in their communities while advocating for policy improvements.
Furthermore, CascadeLink has facilitated relationship building with community
GIS experts in an effort to share resources for citizen and community benefits.
The staff at CascadeLink deserves credit
for the proactive way in which it has facilitated relationships within
their community. After all, partnerships are rarely forged over night.
The CascadeLink staff’s persistence and the library’s perceived neutrality
helps to build trust among the community players and CascadeLink. As Reed
put it: “I try to get myself invited to meetings all the time, particularly
with people who do things regionally that marry up with what CascadeLink
is all about. I try to go to the community or governmental communicators
meetings and to the regional health informational sharing meeting.” This
sort of persistence has yielded impressive results, many of which benefit
CascadeLink’s largest group of stakeholders—the citizens of Portland.
To the top
Specializing in Community Information
CascadeLink offers a great deal more than
just information regarding upcoming events or results of regional elections.
Visitors to CascadeLink told us that they use the site for a variety of
reasons. They use it to find jobs, access neighborhood profiles, identify
educational resources, locate non-profit organizations, gather demographic
data, and track down information on ordinances and zoning laws. Librarians
are skilled information organizers. So, it comes as little surprise that
the community information on CascadeLink is easy to navigate, well-organized,
and frequently updated. The benefit of accessing community information
from a site like CascadeLink is perhaps best described by the users. They
sing its praises with comments such as the following:
“This site contains a wealth of information
specific to the Portland metro area and is one of my favorites.”
“It brings everything to one location.
It's very easy to navigate around in and everything is right there at your
fingertips--it's just right there.”
“I absolutely rely on this website for
home and work projects. I also refer lots of people I speak from both out
of state and locally, to the web site. It cuts through all the garbage
and gets straight to the heart!”
Pounding the Pavement on the Information
Highway
According to a survey that we conducted
with CascadeLink users, hunting for employment is by far the most popular
use of the CascadeLink site. The majority of people who responded to our
online survey said that they came to CascadeLink to check out the Job
and Career pages (http://www.cascadelink.org/jobs/index.html).
One job seeker said, “CascadeLink is really the best place to go to find
out about jobs--all the information is right there. You can find out about
benefits, the salary--all on the web site.” Meanwhile, another job seeker
described the arduous path that he would have had to take were it not for
electronic information resources such as CascadeLink: “I would have
to go directly to the locations to apply for the job, but that would take
a lot of time. It is much easier to use CascadeLink. It's a great time
saver.” These quotes are telling of the ways in which CascadeLink staff
embrace today’s technological innovations in order to respond to citizens’
information needs.
From Pavements to Parks
Portland is a unique city that tends to
defy the same forces that have negatively impacted other American cities.
James Howard Kunstler describes the story of how back in the 1970s, at
a time when other American cities eagerly accepted federal subsidies to
build new freeways along their waterfronts, Portland opted to tear down
a four-lane expressway along the river. They replaced the expressway with
two miles of a riverfront park in an effort to reconnect the city with
its waterfront. This story illuminates the forward-thinking of the city’s
inhabitant and planners, while providing an anecdote about the power of
partnership. When residents and their governing institutions work together
to define what’s important, they can come up with thoughtful and satisfying
solutions. There is no doubt that the same forward-thinking vision
exhibited by Portland’s planners is also reflected in their community network,
CascadeLink. Indeed, the success of CascadeLink reflects the power of partnership
and the expertise of librarians to organize information and advocate for
their community.
For more information on CascadeLink
or
the Multnomah County Public Library
please
refer to their web pages.
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