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@aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin@aoir.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Tharp Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:18 PM To: air-l@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@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:31 PM To: air-l@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 Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Thursdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l