Paul used to think that there was no public interest work, just work in the private interest. Then he came around to this definition: Public interest work is work that creates public goods, or reduces inequality. Something for which the benefits accrue to everyone. Ask yourself: is the work or internship you're involved in creating a public good?

Public goods

• At the margin, my use doesn't use it up.

I'm working on redeveloping the main navigation bar for the CIC site this weekend, a task suddenly significantly more challenging as I've lost my free home Internet access. Thank goodness for screenshots!

I don't expect to produce a perfect new version right away. I expect I'll come up with something that may be a little more workable, and will probably split the current navigation into multiple pieces. And we'll try it out and then change it as needed. I'm thinking along the lines of splitting the navigation among features, resources and actions, which would provide logical groupings for the options. Fortunately, this is a relatively discreet task that I can work on without spending too much effort considering the whole site, which helps--I have a tendency to look at the big picture and the details become overwhelming.

BiblioCommons is a Toronto-based initiative that is developing hosted web services to integrate with libraries’ OPAC and circulation systems. It will enable library patrons to easily annotate the libraries’ bibliographic records with evaluative, associative and synoptic “tags”.

BiblioCommons is premised on a conviction that libraries not only can, but should play a leading role in the emerging field of “social knowledge discovery”.

It's all about peer pressure.

Well, it's really all about others getting involved (or getting others involved) on the CIC web site. I've been working on it for almost a year now and it's been a lot of effort. Today's meeting with Lev and Kyle about our approach for the site this fall was really refreshing for me. We agreed that core functionality--accommodating what people REALLY use on the site--is our main objective. Hurrah!

How do you measure if social capital has "succeeded" or not? Is "success" even
an applicable word?

Is social capital fixed? Measurable? How does it change over time? How has technology impacted the way we see and quantify social capital?

Obtain from the Ctools site and read "Better Together" and "Beyond Bowling Together". This session will be student moderated.

I have posted discussion questions based on the readings for Class 2. Add a reply item under at least one of the topics for the Bishop-Bruce paper and at least under the Putnam topics. In addition if you want to add another topic for discussion and seed it with your thoughts that is fine too. Also please revisit the site several times and if so inclined add comments to what others have said. I am trying to stimulate conversation.

In the taxonomy of concepts for this CIC website the concept of Social Capital has under it Bridging/Bonding. Civic Engagement, and Social Networks. What is the relationship between all of these concepts/sub-concepts?

The performance of our democratic institutions depends upon social capital. Gives some examples. Putnam also gives examples of “measurable ways.” Cite an one of them.

Share some thoughts about the relationship between increasing ubiquitous information and communication technology (ICT, cyberinfrastructure) and the creation or demise of social capital.