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  • Profile picture of Sadie

    Sadie posted an update in the group Group logo of Choosing Your Community DiscussionChoosing Your Community Discussion 3 months ago

    Hi everyone!

    I guess I’ll begin by saying I’m really excited for this research project and how I feel it will help inform the work that I do currently. I work for a prison education project that includes a variety of different programs for both currently and formerly incarcerated scholars, and part of my work here is with building orientation programs and curriculum, including modules that can be completed asynchronously. One of the problems we, as well as other programs across the country, frequently encounter is the inability of the students to be able to access research materials, for a myriad of reasons, including censorship, lack of internet, and a lack of offline solutions. This is my information community, incarcerated learners – justice-impacted learners – and is the community I’ll be working with for this project.

    • Profile picture of Michael Stephens
      Michael Stephens replied 3 months ago

      @trases I’ve had a number of successful papers on this community. Not necessarily incarcerated learners but those who are incarcerated. What is interesting about this is most of the library and information. Science research on this community comes through the lens of the librarians who serve the community. It’s a much different thing than many of the other communities you will encounter in this class and beyond and as you mention, there’s no connectivity, no Internet, etc. It will be very interesting to see how the learning aspect incorporates into the work and what you find in the LIS databases.

      • Profile picture of Sadie
        Sadie replied 2 months, 4 weeks ago

        Thank you so much for your feedback! I’ve been looking at JSTOR’s offline solution and Wikimedia (their proposal and ongoing push), and am beginning with the text, “Library Services and Incarceration: Recognizing Barriers, Strengthening Access,” by Jeanie Austin.
        I’m wondering if my focus on “incarcerated learners,” is too narrow? I chose this particular community, as I was wanting to focus on the lack of accessibility in institutional facilitation of the college programs that are offered, where even then students are severely limited in their educational endeavors by their inability to utilize databases for academic research projects, etc. I’m now considering if that works for this project or if perhaps it would be better to focus on the more broad plight of incarcerated folks lack of access to information as a whole?

        Thanks again for your reply!