ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the public library is emerging as a space for grassroots media production. Not only is a library a space to source information and knowledge, but a place to create and share. This chapter seeks to recognise the value of libraries as an emerging area of grassroots media practice, and the opportunities for sharing community knowledge through engaging in qualitative research in this sector. Drawing on a case study of a recent citizen journalism project at a state library in Queensland, Australia, it describes the learning that occurred for those who delivered the programme, and explores how this is of benefit and interest to those persons involved in embarking on similar projects. This chapter draws on earlier research, ‘Co-creating stories in social learning systems: The role of community media and cultural organisations in disseminating knowledge’ (Heck, 2015). The GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) had invited exploration into how community media practice contributes to wider social learning as the sector takes up the challenge of media practice to engage in the community. In my research study, I explored how facilitators and coordinators in library-based programmes learn to facilitate storytelling in the community, via community media practice, and what is learned in the process through their own collaborative and informal learning intersections. I will discuss how learning to facilitate storytelling and media skills in the community sector often evolves to meet the needs of the local community of which it is a part, to meet the requirements of the auspicing agencies that fund such projects, and meet the mission of the host organisation and various stakeholders. This study also explored how the learning is part of a larger social learning system.
