Abstract

The project is an exploratory network analysis that examines a social movement of African-American women community activists in the attempted establishment of library branch facilities in a public housing community in 1960’s Chicago. The research elevates the activist groups’ efforts in the claiming of information needs for their community. It challenges the privileging of the administrative voice of library decision-making in an urban context, by situating the struggle in an African-American community. The network is created from thirty primary source documents related the social movement. They include newspaper articles, annual reports from the Chicago Public Library, Chicago Public Library Board meeting minutes, and reports and documents from the local community center. The poster demonstrates the effectiveness of analyzing documents through the development of network in order to link relationships, understand the landscape of a social movement, and positioning the library through the lens of the community