Community Information Service

“ কলেজের বাইিরে যে দেশ পড়িয়া আছে তাহার মহত্ত্ব একেবারে ভুলিলে চলিবে না । কলেজের শিক্ষার সঙ্গে দেশের একটা স্বাভাবিক যোগ স্থাপন করিতে হইবে ।” ( ছাত্রদের প্রতি সম্ভাষণ )

----- রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর

The first use of the expression Community Information Services (CIS) was in the United States where it was coined to describe the services set up in response to the Kahn report on British Citizens Advice Bureaux (Kahn, 1966). Arising out of the American war on Poverty Programme of the 1960s a number of libraries set up information and referral services. These were seen as having two main aims: 1. To link the client with a problem to the appropriate agency that could answer his or her needs. 2. To supply the service providers with feedback from users. Because these services were neighbourhood based and because they were fulfilling a signposting function to both charities and services within the state welfare system the term community information service was coined to describe them. Community Information Service is considered to be that information service required by members of the public (or those acting on their behalf) to make effective use of the resources potentially available to them in the comm~nities in which they live. Such information may be needed to help solve problems in the fields of housing, disability, household finance, agriculture, marriage, employment and so on (Library Association, 1980, pp. 9-10). Donohue (1976) identified two types of information provided by a community information service:

1. Survival information such as that related to health, housing, income, legal protection, economic opportunity, political rights etc.

2. Citizen action information, needed for effective participation as individual or as member of a group in the social, political, legal, economical process.

A report published by the Library Association (U.K.) in 1980 distinguished the three types of information provided by public libraries, namely reference, local and community information. According to the Library Association definition: "Community Information Services can, therefore, be defined as services which assist individuals and groups with daily problem-solving and with participation in the democratic process. The service concentrates on the needs of those who do not have ready access to other sources of assistance and on the most important problems that people have to face, problems to do with their homes, their jobs and their rights ... this would mean a positive decision to concentrate on enabling people, particularly those in lower socio-economic groups to act either individually or collectively on their problems in the fields of housing, employment, family and personal matters, consumer affairs, household finance, education, welfare rights and civil rights" (Library Association, 1980, pp. 1 0-12).