I'm trying to catch up on some of my email backlog. This was posted last week by Andrew Sears regarding an article in the Economist: "2. Addressing the digital divide is not as helpful with people who do not have basic needs met like food, shelter and basic literacy. My Comments: I think that this point is extremely important, and we need to be careful to listen to the needs of the community and respond to that rather than saying that computers are the solution."
I have to say this is very important also. I know that I often hear that concern when I approach a group about getting access to health information online - this is something that is so low on the list of priorities that some people have that they feel I am wasting their time. I have mixed feelings about this. Yes, the community is (are?) the ones who know the needs. Can I offer a solution in some form that might help them meet one or more needs, that maybe they hadn't thought of before - can we work together (this is extremely important) to explore whether that is the case? So, I don't go in and say, Here is my magic solution to what I perceive from outside is a need you have. Instead, I say, here is what I know. Tell me what you know, and lets see if we can work together. And sometimes the answer is that we can't work together at this time. Sometimes computers and internet access is not the solution. But, can I network with people, like those in the DDN, who might have a better answer than I do? One of the things I love about my job is the number of people I meet, and being able to bring people together. (Phil Shapiro is the master of this!) So, I would say the DDN is not just about computers and access to the internet. Its about finding solutions to inequities, and focusing on bridging the digital divide as one large step in the solution, but not the only step. Andrew, I appreciate you bringing this up. It's a very important issue in the work we all do. Siobhan Siobhan Champ-Blackwell Community Outreach Liaison NN/LM-MCR Creighton University Health Sciences Library 2500 California Plaza Omaha, NE 68178 402.280.4156/800.338.7657 option#1,#2, then #1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://nnlm.gov/mcr http://medstat.med.utah.edu/blogs/BHIC/ http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/siobhanchamp-blackwell _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
