Background edit

Conceptual approaches edit

in Canada, the beginnings of CI can be recognized from various trials in community networking in the 1970s (Clement 1981). An essential development occurred in the 1990s, due to the change of cost of computers and modems. Moreover, examples of using computer networking to initiate and enhance social activities was acknowledged by women's groups (Balka 1992) and by the labor movement (Mazepa 1997). [1]

Research and practice interests edit

Another helpful and corresponding conceptual framework for understanding CI is Clement and Shade's "access rainbow" (Clement and Shade 2000).[1] Clement and Shade have contended that accomplishing insignificant specialized connectedness to the Internet is no assurance that an individual or group will prevail with regards to appropriating new ICTs in ways that advance their improvement, independence, or empowerment. It is an approach which has has multi-layered socio-specialized model for universal access to ICTs. It is displayed as seven layers, starting with the fundamental technical components of connectedness and moving upward through layers that inexorably push the essential social framework of access. The seven layers are: 1. Carriage 2. Devices 3. Software tools Internet 4. Content/services 5. Service/access 6. Literacy / social facilitation 7. Governance.[1] Even though that all elements are important, the most important one is the content /service layer in the middle, since this is where the actual utility is most direct. The upper layers focus on social dimensions and the lower layers focus on technical aspects.[1]


In Canada, The Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN) was established in 2003. Their goal is to explore and archive the status and achievements of CI activities in Canada. It is a research partnership between scholastics, specialists, and public sector delegates. [1]

Networks edit

Public libraries and community networks edit

Even though that community networks and public libraries have similitudes in various ways, there are some obstacles that upset the probability of cooperation in the future between them. Albeit both CNs and libraries are concerned with giving information services to the society, an exchange is by all accounts lacking between the two communities. The mission of libraries is frequently rather barely engaged and, with regards to managing people and different institutes, their methodology can be to some degree unbending. Thusly, CN specialists, while institutionally more adaptable, rush to expel the part of public libraries in the community, tending to see the library essentially as a store of books upheld by public subsidizing. Public libraries have a long-standing custom of association with their communities, yet their conditions and concerns contrast from those of community networks (CNs).[1]


References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f Clement, Andrew; Gurstein, Michael; Longford, Graham; Moll, Marita; Shade, Leslie Regan (2011). Connecting Canadians investigations in community informatics. Edmonton: AU Press. ISBN 978-1-926836-42-3.


{{DEFAULTSORT:Community Informatics}} [[Category:Community networks]] [[Category:Computing and society]] [[Category:Information and communication technologies for development]] [[Category:Library science]] [[Category:Interdisciplinary subfields of sociology]] [[Category:Information society]] [[Category:Computational fields of study]]