Think New Orleans

Better Living Through Librarianship

Laureen Lentz and I have been batting back and forth and idea of hers. She put it quite simply. Take a laptop to a bus stop. Answer questions using the Internet.

Questions about “Road Home” money. Questions about housing. Basic questions.

The idea is to set up a table at the cross-roads of the digital divide. This shall be the first true digital divide initiative of Think New Orleans.

Here are some questions regarding the logisitcs.

• Which church or neighborhood gathering? Where?
• What is the inventory of necessary equipment?
• How do we ensure connectivity? Wifi for cellular?
• How do we record the lessons learned?
• What strategies can we devise to quickly answer frequently asked questions?
• What strategies can we devise to perform common procedures such as registrations or permits?
• How do we turn this into something replicable?

Laureen and I have discussed this in some detail. This is a conversation starter. I’ll place my notes form the conversation in the comments, along side Laureen’s. Anyone can chime in.

Update: We need a venue. We are looking for some place where connectivity is still an issue. Who wants to volunteer their community meeting? We’ll set up a card table. It will be the Internet help desk.

A Middle Class Tool

“The Internet is a middle class tool.” This was said, nay, shouted, at a recent Neighborhoods’ Planning Network meeting.

This was a somewhat heated discussion of the roll the Internet plays in the rebuilding of a city after a disaster. During the presentation of Dr. Rob Olshansky of the University of Illinois was discussing research on Kobe, Japan and San Francisco. They point was raised that information systems are critical, and these days that means the Internet.

The reaction was one of resentment. For a large swath of our city, the Internet has not mattered, and it is an imposition to say that it now matters.

The Haves, The Have Nots, The Care Nots

In the City of New Orleans, the digital divide is not a simple issue of haves and have nots.

Thanks to Katrina, the digital divide is an issue of infrastructure. People who once had home computers, now no longer have homes nor computers.

Broadband service has yet to be restored in many areas of the city. Regardless of the affluence of the citizen, the service simply is not there.

Thanks to the beauty and scale of our city, the digital divide is an issue of culture. We live in our city. We don’t live online.

We socialize with neighbors. We exchange information in cafes and on cork bulletin boards.

We don’t need a surrogate for conversation, we’re in contact with people all day.

We do not use social networking software, software that was designed to address the difficulties of communicating in cities that are built on an automotive scale.

Priorities

There are plenty of reasons for people to place the Internet and it’s use low on the list of priorities. We have an opportunity to approach digital divide issues without the presumption of poverty on the part of the disconnected. This can make the approach more equitable and dignified.

Nobody is going to have to suffer through the indignity of “empowerment”.

If the priority is information, than “computer literacy” is not an issue.

The requirement that a person change their priorities, learn to use the Internet, under duress, does not serve the civic interest.

Think New Orleans proposes that we employ the age old tactic, the division of labor.

Citizen Librarians

The Internet can be a tool for a community with a low concentration of Internet accessible computers, if we create citizen librarians, who will assist people in finding information, gather the information most frequently sought and bring it forward. Bring it far enough forward that it can go home in print.

The goal is not to create new computer users.

The goal is to share knowledge.

The bridging equipment of the digital divide for the City of New Orleans is a citizen librarian, sitting at a table, with laptop and a printer.

Through this demonstration of the value of the Internet, people may rearrange their priorities.

Or they may not, but they are no longer compelled.