Sunday, September 9, 2007

Week 4: A Proposal for Implementing Social Software in the San Jose Library

(A very crumpled draft)

This proposal is designed to use the wonderfully rich multicultural heritage of San Jose to build a wiki, A Thousand Flavors of San José, that will collect through personal accounts a historical portrait of San Jose life from 1900 to the present with a focus on family and communal celebrations during which a sharing of traditional ethnic foods strengthened old ties while creating new friendships. Any photos or artwork contributed to wiki would be stored on Flickr.

According to Wikipedia, "A wiki is a collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as 'the simplest online database that could possibly work'." Wikipedia describes Flickr as "a photo sharing website and web services suite, and an online community platform..."

The implementation of A Thousand Flavors of San José wiki would require
collaborating with such library departments as Partners in Reading (PAR), Adult Services, the California Room, and our Multicultural Committee, and partnering with such community organizations as the Mexican Heritage Center, Japanese American Museum of San Jose, Viet Heritage Society, and Chinese Historical and Cultural Project. A few examples of possible collaboration: PAR could incorporate entries to the wiki into its Learners program; Adult Services could design a program to elicit family reminiscences, for instance a Vietnamese New Moon festival gathering or a Mexican Quinceañera. The stories collected could be used to enhance other library programs. Contributors would have the satisfaction of sharing their experiences with a wide San Jose audience through technology utilized by their library.

Obvious roadblocks to this sort of project are: 1) Selling this project to administration and department partners. 2) Deciding whether wiki should be hosted or on the library's server, in which case software would need to be selected and purchased. 2) Finding staff time to discuss idea, address any legal or policy issues, set up the organization of the wiki, inform the library and public about it, provide instruction in how to contribute text and photos, review entries on a weekly basis, and plan ways to use the material accumulated in this wiki database. 4) Locating and involving community groups. 5) Addressing question of legal ownership of the material/photos.

These roadblocks could be addressed by: 1) Submitting a detailed, carefully researched proposal with realistic goals and measurable benefits. 2) Researching hosting and software and presenting this information to administration and library IT for a decision. 3) Assigning a scheduled block of time per week for staff involved in project. 4) Utilizing already developed contacts with community organizations, placing a visible promotion of the wiki on our library website, and producing handouts about the wiki for library programs. 5) Adding a legal disclaimer/policy statement to wiki.



"Not yours?" queries the crow. "Not a jot!" Zhar looks offended. Despite his fiery personality, my friend hasn't the claw for cooking. I, on the other hand, have stirred up a tasty pot of stone soup, baked Pompeii bread in hot ashes, and attempted Mouse ala Kiev. This proposal could elicit some flavorful recipes. "Too frivolous," is Zhar's considered opinion. "Not at all," I retort. "Food preparation has always been a way of bringing folk who have mouths and stomachs together - whether human or not. Sharing communal feasts promotes better understanding of each other's preferences and eating habits." Mr. Publicity (whose indelicate corvid eating habits are far too well known) is poking his beak into A Proposal to discover its content. Next moment he bops up with "Could I interest you, sir and madam, in a tasting tour of downtown's best restaurant garbage bins?" But, of course. We just need to find napkins.

2 comments:

Meredith Farkas said...

Hilary, I absolutely love your idea of creating cultural heritage materials/remembrances through a wiki! This is not something I've ever seen done before and a wiki would definitely be a good technology with which to collect people's knowledge.

There are so many organizations in communities with similar or complementary goals that we could be partnering with to improve services to our service populations. I'm glad to see that your proposal capitalizes on those organizations in your community.

Excellent work!

Pogos Pogosian said...

Sounds like a great idea, but why go back only to 1900? We should be seeking wiki contributions about this geographical area going back not only to pre-Columbian times but to prehistoric times. There might not be any dinosaurs around now, but we know that they roamed the area and left behind their bird descendants, some of whom can talk. We could transcribe intelligible bird utterances and add them to the wiki, thus making these remembrances truly community-wide. Only then will I lend my considerable weight to the proposal.