The CyberNavigators of Chicago Public Library and the 'informatics moment': On a budget, democratizing information flows in low-income neighborhoods

Abstract

In Code, Lessig identifies software code as the architecture of the virtual spaces we depend on and inhabit, either enabling or blocking our motion. In the public library, occupational structures and professional identities are part of the ‘code’ that either enables or blocks effective public access to information. Today computers are not only for librarian use, they are for public use. And they are expensive, and so is computer expertise. With its Cybernavigator staff, the Chicago Public Library has found a way to economically provide computer/internet help to patrons, working around the training gap we find in the library profession/paraprofession. A study underway in Chicago is drawing lessons from cybernavigators and librarians in order to update professional preparation by incorporating public access computer service into the skill set. Archival work, ethnographies, surveys and focus groups suggest that library workers should be from the community they serve; skilled at networking with community members and groups; at least one step ahead of their patrons technologically; and possessed of a ‘hacker ethic’ (Himanen). A community organizer, social capital, or ‘collective intelligence’ (Levy) approach also works best to mobilize local talent to resolve digital inequalities. Staff should also understand the patron (and thus the branch) as creating and uploading information and not only downloading and using. One tool (among many) we find useful for teaching this new information-sharing approach to students, patrons, and librarians is Wikipedia; another is Lessig’s own Free Culture and Creative Commons, which counter today’s draconian copyright regimes in a popular, imaginative way.

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