What is Community Informatics?
Community Informatics, or CI, is at its heart an area of study within library science that is dedicated to providing communities (neighborhoods, towns, virtual groups) with the means (skills, resources, relationships) to address their own needs (education, jobs, health, archiving community history, and more). These means are enabled by (or related to) information technologies, or in some broader interpretations, information processes. Community Informatics is a subset of a larger area of study, known as social informatics, which is the study of information and communication tools in social (cultural and institutional) contexts. So that’s a lot of words. What do we really mean? Community informatics is about making a difference in the world from the ground up. As an area of research we’re interested in addressing real-world problems that are important to everyday people in communities, especially ones that want and need help. We invite members of these communities to be part of our rese
