[Air-l] the history of social infomatics

[Michael Gurstein]

Thanks to Kevin and Maja,

I only met Rob Kling once (at the AoIR meeting in Maastricht).  We were
introduced by some mutual acquaintances.  We immediately entered into an
intense conversation on Community Informatics vs. Social Informatics...
I was struck by the fact that he had read (and deeply assimilated) all
of what I thought were the relevant materials.  

His strongly but respectfully presented challenge was two-fold, first
"what was new or different (from say, Social Informatics), about
Community Informatics" and second if there was something new about CI,
what were appropriate methodologies for analysing/researching in the
field given the conceptual (and methodological) ambiguities around the
notion of "community".

As Kevin noted, he very generously made an invitation to prepare a
"Position Paper" on Community Informatics for an upcoming issue of
Information Society.  As these things happen, the article took rather
longer than I would have liked when I received the shocking news of his
untimely death. 

Best,

MG
-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-admin at aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin at aoir.org] On Behalf Of
Kevin Tharp
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:18 PM
To: air-l at aoir.org
Subject: RE: [Air-l] the history of social infomatics


Denise:

You might also want to consider the similar area of Community
Informatics.  There is a growing body of literature in this area that
considers the use of ICT in communities.  A couple of quick references:

Gurstein, M. (2000). Community informatics: Enabling communities with
information and communications technologies. Hershey, PA: Idea Group
Pub. Keeble, L., & Loader, B. (2002). Community informatics : shaping
computer-mediated social relations. New York: Routledge. Marshall, S.,
Taylor, W., & Yu, X. H. (2004). Using community informatics to transform
regions. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Pub.

It is my understanding that Rob Kling did not see eye-to-eye with the
Community Informatics people, and that he was trying to have some of the
differences in the fields articulated by inviting Gurstein and perhaps
others to contribute journal articles.  It is unfortunate that this was
not accomplished.

Regards,
Kevin W. Tharp


-----Original Message-----
From: Denise N. Rall [mailto:denrall at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:31 PM
To: air-l at aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] the history of social infomatics


BIG THANKS to all who sent me info (while wondering
why I hadn't just googled the topic myself) . . . and
I still can't get over that Rob Kling is gone as I was
having drinks with him in the Milwuakee Art Museum 2
years ago and he was brilliant!

I was actually looking for a textbook that discussed
social infomatics as a possibility within a range of
fields: In other words, the history of social
infomatics discussed alongside the history of other
computing fields, such as HCI, CSCW, AI, etc.  I have
a lot of 'management information systems' textbooks
but they are quite slanted to the business application
side of things.

The textbook I do have is just a bit dated:
Maule, R. W. (1998). Information theory and research:
An introduction to the disciplines and methodologies
of information studies and organizational informatics.
San Francisco, Information Associates Press.

But thanks heaps for all the responses and I will
scout through the websites looking for textbook type
stuff. Cheers, Denise





=====
Denise N. Rall, PhD student, School of Env. Science, Southern Cross Uni,

Marker for Protected/Natural Area Management, BIO00244
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Office (Thursdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html

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