Tag: community empowerment

Mobile Access and Accessibility

Immediate Access vs. Building Future Accessibility

Watson’s 2023 article “Libraries on Call: Smartphone lending program bridges technology gaps” is a great example of providing immediate material access which improves people’s lives. However there is another side I don’t want us to lose sight of.

Immediate Access

This approach:

  • is often technology-based,
  • uses individual devices to bridge access gaps,
  • has a cost per device and per person served,
  • often puts the onus on the individual or community organizations to bridge the gap,
  • is often not scalable,
  • circumvents barriers but does not remove them, and
  • may create temporary access and dependency on the short-term solution.

Examples may include: translation devices/apps, recording devices and voice-to-text, and my favorite example of this phenomenon: specialized powered wheelchairs that can climb steps.

Future Accessibility

This approach:

  • is often infrastructure based;
  • looks at long-term and universal access;
  • incurs a large but often one-time cost;
  • may face a lot of push-back due to the scale of change needed;
  • does not ask individuals and communities that are facing barriers to dissolve or overcome the barriers themselves; and
  • results in spaces that are inherently more accessible and therefore require no additional resources to access.

Examples may include: retrofitting buildings, building new structures, redesigning processes, and just creating new systems from the ground up.

Providing immediate access to some while building more universal and permanent access is important and necessary. Building permanent access may even grow out of some of those temporary solutions into long-term solutions. What’s important here is that effort is being made to provide both immediate and permanent access.

Understanding and Transferable Skills for Future Access

Mobile devices and user interfaces in particular (including mobile apps) tend to have a much lower barrier to entry in terms of both cost and computing know-how. They are highly-accessible devices for people from a variety of backgrounds, ages, education levels, and ability. However, the other side of this coin is that they also tend to obscure and make harder to see or understand the basics of computing.

We have seen that younger generations who have grown up using cloud storage and mobile apps do not have basic understanding of file structures and directories. They rely on search. And with generative “AI” now entering the scene, this is getting only worse.

While these mobile devices being accessible is great for the short-term and can help connect people to information and resources quickly, the devices themselves do not help users build skills around computing, accessing information, or other digital skills that could be useful to them in their lives. As long as these devices and the software they carry hide the complexity behind a simple UI, users will have to learn another way. But will they choose to when the easier option is within reach?

Photo by Kajetan Sumila on Unsplash

Resources

Trust. Be Curious. Transform. And Don’t Do it Alone

In some of the stories Michael has shared it’s apparent that some libraries and staff still struggle with viewing users almost as adversaries or challenges. When we find ourselves asking something like ‘how do we protect the library from users?’ that signifies a fundamentally flawed relationship to our user-base. To break out of that way of thinking we have to (1) understand what it means for the library to belong to its users, and (2) respond with curiosity and compassion.

At least some of the pressure libraries feel comes from trying to do everything, all at once, and trying to do it alone. We live in a society where we view abundance as coming from the top of the social-economic hierarchy and flowing downward. Large companies “create jobs and opportunities” for workers, billionaires engage in philanthropy, charities provide for the ‘needy’. Therefore we see the library as a provider and therefore — unfortunately — as being above our most vulnerable users. Then we run into issues with trying to pour from an empty cup. That view is false. Workers create value for companies through their labor and it’s the people on the ground that make the biggest difference. Value flows UP in our society regardless of what the CEOs and billionaires say, which means the abundance actually lies at the bottom.

When we see our users and our community as allies and partners we open up new possibilities for both our users and for the library itself. Instead of trying to be every solution, be the vehicle for the solutions the community has to offer. Ask people what they need, what would make their lives better. Then ask people what solutions they have for the issues their community faces. Bring services to them where they are. Make it easier for them to come to you. Ask them for help and partner with groups in the community to expand services. The library doesn’t have to do it all or be the only answer, but it plays an important role in making these things happen.

I was really moved by the Wash & Learn program because not only was it bringing library services and supports to people when it would be convenient for them, it was also run by young volunteers who no doubt gained skills and insights about what their community needs. Libraries belong to users, so they should be tools that help users and communities help themselves.

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

I think part of the solution displayed here is thinking about users as more than library users. They are also teachers, parents, singers, hosts, designers, and so much more. They are also drivers, eaters, shoppers, and just people who need to do laundry so they have clean clothes to wear next week.

For my own work, I was really excited to learn about Commons in a Box created by CUNY. It is exactly the kind of tool that I’ve been looking for or thinking about building to help communities connect and create together. I have two projects where I would like to try to implement this and I am so excited to learn more about how to create and support communities through platforms like this through experimentation.

Assignment X: Participation and Community Empowerment

The theme within the concept of the Hyperlinked Library that has most captured my attention is that of user participation. I love that the Hyperlinked Library takes this concept beyond participation in programming or even providing feedback to help design library services, instead it asks how libraries can support users actively participate in all areas of their lives and as members of their communities.

photo of three people planting flowers
Photo by Quilia on Unsplash

Participation in this way is about agency and empowerment. Libraries exist to connect their communities to information and resources (including people!) that enable them to take action, to create, and to make an impact on their own lives and on the world around them. For libraries to do this work, they must break down the barriers that make information and people inaccessible.

Libraries are already doing versions of this: creating zine collections featuring local zine-makers; supporting civic literacy by educating users on their rights and on issues that affect them so they can make informed decisions;“exchanging knowledge without curriculum and administrators” (Stephens,2016); and offering seed libraries for home and community gardens. Even outside the library itself, Little Free Libraries have expanded who can contribute to their communities through literary resources; and when established libraries join in, these little libraries can become a powerful expansion of the library’s mission and reach. (Cottrell, n.d.)

The capitalist framework once promised that competition would drive innovation and push our societies to new heights. Instead, we have witnessed that same competitiveness hold individuals, businesses, and organizations back from real innovation and service. A competitor is a threat that we must either attack or defend against. But when we stop seeing everything as a threat — including Little Free Libraries — we instead have the opportunity to better serve our communities by meeting them where they are, answering their needs, and pivoting to work with them using the tools they’re already holding. (Schneider, 2006) Sometimes the library will act as a leader, educating and aiding users. Other times the library will find itself jumping on a bandwagon that users started. A successful library need not predict their users needs at every turn. A library that truly belongs to its users will accept being helped and led by its community instead.

Libraries must belong to its users and its community in all ways. Not only in the literal but indirect way of taxpayer funding but also emotionally. When we participate in building something with our own hands, when someone relies on us, and when we are allowed to contribute something substantial to a project or cause, we develop a sense of ownership. Libraries cannot be charities, they cannot be top-down resource provision for the “needy,” they must be spaces where people come to provide to the library, to help themselves, and to support each other. This is the kind of ‘buy-in’ that will generate true participation and empowerment. (Casey, 2011) This is how users and communities learn to practice agency and solve problems themselves.

Photo of an older asian man helping a young brown-skinned woman fill out paperwork
Photo by Monica Melton on Unsplash

The average person in the Global North is alienated from labor and expertise. We are experts in our own fields or our own roles, but lack understanding about other kinds of work and other kinds of knowledge. Worse, we assume that these things are inaccessible and far away. We are taught that engaging expertise means outsourcing, literally bringing in professionals from outside our circles to solve our problems for us (and usually with the exchange of money). But what if the expertise — the experience — we need is already local? What if we could learn to tap into the wisdom of our neighbors? What if we could learn to build more resilient and self-sufficient communities, not through isolation but through connection? What if our users are themselves the answers they seek? and the answers we seek?

Some of the questions I am most interested in exploring throughout this course include:

    • What are ways that people working at any level or role in a library can help build participatory culture?
    • What might it look like to build this kind of participatory culture in other organizations, especially in smaller and less formal ones?
    • How can library users exercise their agency as users and community members, to take ownership of their libraries as spaces for active participation?

References

Casey, M. (2011). Revisiting participatory service in trying times. Tame the Web. https://tametheweb.com/2011/10/20/revisiting-participatory-service-in-trying-times-a-ttw-guest-post-by-michael-casey/ 

Cottrell, M. (2018). The question of little free libraries: Are they a boon or bane to communities? American Libraries Magazine. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2018/01/02/question-little-free-libraries/

Schneider, K (2006). The user is not broken. Free Range Librarian. http://freerangelibrarian.com/2006/06/03/the-user-is-not-broken-a-meme-masquerading-as-a-manifesto/ 

Stephens, M. (2016). “The age of participation” in The Heart of Librarianship, p. 79. ALA Editions.

Welcome and Hello

Welcome to The Linked Knode! 

My name is Yadir. I am a disability advocate and information nerd.

I’ve been thinking about the ways groups and communities create and use knowledge for several years. “Knode” is a word I coined and use on my personal digital garden site at https://yknode.link. Here is the definition I use for it:

knode noun  (knowledge + node)
A point of intersection and perspective containing a unique collection of information, wisdom, and connections.

For work I support people with developmental disabilities in California advocate for themselves and coordinate support services that are personalized, rooted in community, and effective at meeting their needs. The Medicaid program that I work within is complex — has rules at the federal, state, and regional levels that need to be navigated –, involves many different players, and is constantly changing. It is my dream to create a centralized community platform to house and exchange information about the program, what people in the community are experiencing, successes and obstacles, and solutions. I imagine this might look like the combination of a forum and wiki.

Creating this living information hub and others like it is the kind of work I want to do. I can see myself doing this work directly in community settings and with community organizations, or through public libraries. I’m also really interested in growing my skills in organizing information to be most easily accessible, digestible, and useful to the people who use it.

Central to how I see my work as an informational professional are principles of:

    • participation
    • collective knowledge
    • stewardship
    • community empowerment

I want communities to participate in the creation and stewardship of knowledge, and to feel empowered to make use of the knowledge that already exists in their communities to solve problems.

I have been looking forward to taking the Hyperlinked Library course since I first applied to the SJSU MLIS program because I think it aligns so well with my values and goals. I am looking forward to getting to know and learn from all my fellow students.

In my free time, I love to read, watch, play, and listen to fiction — particularly sci-fi and fantasy. I recently enjoyed the latest novella in The Murderbot Diaries series, Platform Decay by Martha Wells; and the second novel in The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Tapestry of Fate by Shannon Chakraborty. I also really enjoy Japanese manga and anime Haikyuu!! and Dr. Stone are two of my all-time favorites. I’m currently playing Sea of Stars on Playstation 4 and loving it, it’s got a retro feel and full of so much heart. And last but not least, I love listening to the Friends at the Table podcast, they tell such incredible, powerful stories.

I can’t help but think a lot about how we work with information and how we might be able to work with information in the future when I am listening to The Murderbot Diaries.