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Greetings all! Welcome to INFO 200 Information Communities Section 02!
This course focuses outward on the people librarians and information professionals serve, those who are creating, using and sharing information. Framing the course as outward-facing reflects exactly how our graduates and information professionals should view the world. Instead of putting the library in the center, we’ve placed the user there. To quote Karen Schneider, “the user is the sun.” From The Encyclopedia of Community, Joan Durrance and Karen Fisher’s definitive entry provides a theoretical framework: information communities promote a common interest around creation and exchange of distributed information; may be built around different focal points and topics; can emerge and function without geographical boundaries; and often exploit the Internet and technology. Each module explores these ideas and weaves in ways that libraries and information organizations can support diverse communities of information seekers, users, and creators. Shades of Seth Godin’s Tribes and Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody color this approach and set students on a path to enter the profession understanding that community needs and service should come first. A healthy dose of Henry Jenkins’s Participatory Culture rounds out the mix. Community members aren’t just consuming information; they are generating new knowledge and new ideas.
The design of INFO 200 Information Communities is to leverage your work throughout the semester to help ensure a successful, culminating research paper at term’s end. You are going to be asked to identify an information community of your choice and as the semester progresses, the blog posts and the larger written assignments will focus on your community’s information behaviors and needs and guide your research and writing.
This site – https://infocom.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/ – is the central hub for our section’s learning community. All news, announcements and course requirements specific to our section will be communicated here. Canvas is used for grading purposes only. This allows you to gain valuable experience participating in an open online community space you may one day use in your professional positions. This site allows online interaction via news feeds, status updates, and student profiles. NOTE: You can give as much or as little information as you’d like in the profiles section. If you choose to use an screename/alias, please let me know so I can track your grading and assignments. You will also be using your blog created for INFO 203 for reflection blogging at our companion site: https://ischoolblogs.sjsu.edu/info/ Both this site and the Community Site run on WordPress and Buddypress. The graphic below illustrates the three “places” we will interact: our section site (here), the Community Site, and Canvas.
The course syllabus is here: https://infocom.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/course-info/syllabus/
Course Structure and Requirements details are here: https://infocom.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/course-structure-requirements/
More posts will follow here at our site, including our first module. Take it one step at time as you get comfortable. Pay attention to tasks and due dates.
Your next step is Action Items for INFO 200.
Best to all for a great semester-
Michael