Youth Community Informatics Final Report

Abstract

Together with 4-H Extension services, the University of Illinois’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) has developed partnerships with youth leaders within and outside educational settings across the state of Illinois. Through the Youth Community Informatics (YCI) program, youth in underserved communities learned to use information and communication technologies to investigate and address community issues. The process introduced youth to the relevance of library and information science by inviting them to become active creators and sustainers of their own communities. Participants created information products ranging from community asset maps to library collections to digital videos to self-published books. Over 50 different LIS youth engagement learning modules were developed through these partnerships. YCI activities have fostered new community-university collaborations as well as changes to the GSLIS curriculum expected to endure past the life of the project.