News | Digital Equity Action Research (DEAR) Lab | School of Information Sciences

New Book Published on Digital Equity Ecosystems

Title of book shown against a black background, which is above a picture of blue water in an estuary surrounded by greenery and a flock of white birds seen from above.

I’m thrilled to announce that my new book, titled “Digital Equity Ecosystems: How Community Coalitions Reduce Inequality and Strengthen Democracy” is now available from the University of California Press. The book introduces an ecosystem approach to study and understand the role of community coalitions in promoting digital equity and social justice. In addition, the book describes how these coalitions work to protect the environment through technology refurbishing while also providing spaces for democratic communication and civic participation in public life.

The book was featured in the iSchools Book Talk series and more information about the book can be found online at the publisher’s website.

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction, which describes the main argument and goals for the book.

In this book, I highlight and uplift stories of “ordinary” people—including educators, librarians, pastors, managers, neighbors, parents, and friends— doing extraordinary things in communities to help other people and our planet. This book underscores how a sense of community can be built by listening and paying attention to these everyday social interactions focused on care. The pandemic reminded us about the importance of digital technologies in our everyday lives, as well as about the face-to-face interactions that we need to solve problems and heal our natural world. However, if we are going to continue this work, we must move beyond an embrace of individualism and towards an embrace of interconnectedness with each other and the earth. By focusing on human and community interactions such as those highlighted in this book, I believe we can learn more about the things that connect us at a basic human level, which can also inspire us to create a better world for one another. At the same time, we must continue to question the role of digital technologies in supporting or limiting the possibilities for such interconnectedness.

The Blueprint for Equitable Digital Participation

A virtual meeting with five participants, four women and one man, all smiling. Name labels identify Caroline Stratton, Claudia, Dominique, Dr. B. Risendorf, and Colin Rhinesmith. Captions appear at the bottom of the screen. (alt text by alttext.ai)

I was honored to participate in a webinar on July 1st to celebrate Dr. Alisa Valentin and Claudia Ruiz’s excellent new paper, titled “The Blueprint for Equitable Digital Participation” from Public Knowledge, UnidosUS, and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA).

From the Benton Institute: “This webinar, featuring the authors of The Blueprint for Equitable Digital Participation and leading experts in the digital equity field, will offer ideas for how policymakers can ensure low- to middle-income households across America can gain and sustain access to high-speed, reliable internet, connected devices, and digital skills.”

It was wonderful to join Alisa, Claudia, and my other amazing colleagues, Regina (Gina) D. Cooper Benjamin, Dr. Dominique Harrison Aluko, Dr. Bianca C. Reisdorf, and Dr. Caroline Stratton.

More information about the event can be found here: https://www.benton.org/event/blueprint-equitable-digital-participation

New Tech Policy Press Op-Ed

Cook County Digital Equity Director and visionary leader, Kyla Williams Tate and I have a new piece up at Tech Policy Press. In it, we share our perspectives on why our federal government needs to restore the Digital Equity Act. Mainly, we argue that federal funding is required to sustain the ecosystems that digital equity requires.

Here’s a blurb from our op-ed in today’s Tech Policy Press.

Healthy ecosystems require sustained investment. Without it, progress slows while the surrounding environment continues to change rapidly. One year later, the argument for restoring the Digital Equity Act is not primarily a financial one. It is an ecological one. Digital equity is not a pipeline that can be turned on and off. It is a living and resilient environment, shaped by trust, sustained by relationships, and dependent on the kind of investment that the Act was designed to provide.

The Journal of Community Informatics: Advancing Engaged Information Sciences

Screenshot of the iSchools Community Informatics Group webpage, showing a description of the groups focus on using information and communication technologies to help diverse communities, with navigation links and logos at the top. (Alt text generated by alttext.ai)

It was wonderful to co-lead our iSchools Community Informatics Group session yesterday, during iConference 2026 in Edinburgh, Scotland, with my colleague and The Journal of Community Informatics co-editor-in-chief, Dr. Khalid Hossain, Research Fellow in the Department of Human Centred Computing at Monash University.

During the session, we introduced our iSchools Community Informatics Group and had a productive brainstorming session about potential topics for future special issues of The Journal of Community Informatics. There was some excitement around the idea of developing a special issue on alternative research methods, including the use of games and other forms of community-engaged and participatory design and research methods.

Here is a link to the slides from our session.

New Article Published in Journal of Participatory Research Methods

Sangha Kang-Le and I have a new peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of Participatory Research Methods. The article, titled “Understanding the Value of a Digital Equity Researcher-Practitioner Collaboration Using Participatory Action Research,” presents an in-depth analysis of the participatory approach we used to produce our (2023) white paper, “Developing a digital equity theory of change with Tech Goes Home” while I was at the Digital Equity Research Center at METRO and Sangha was at Tech Goes Home.

Here’s the abstract from the article:

Digital equity has been defined as a social justice issue. However, there is currently a lack of scholarship that describes how participatory action research (PAR), as a scholar-activist approach, has been used to advance digital equity and social justice through researcher-practitioner collaborations. In response to this gap in the literature, this study presents on an in-depth reflection on how we used PAR in a research project with findings that were previously published in a white paper in 2023. This current paper seeks to respond to the following research question: What is the value of a researcher-practitioner collaboration using PAR to advance digital equity as a social justice issue? To answer this question, we used our project team’s meeting minutes as a source of evidence. More concretely, this thirty-three-page meeting minutes document provided the evidence that we used to respond to the list of thirty-five questions from Cornish et al.’s (2023) six “prompts for designing a PAR project.” This approach provided us with a structured approach to reflect on and articulate the value of using PAR to guide our work together over an eleven-month period. The purpose of this current study is to address a gap in the existing digital equity literature and to more deeply reflect on our collaboration using PAR as a research/practitioner team. As researchers and practitioners working together to advance digital equity, our study found tremendous value in using PAR to create a theory of change, particularly in the context of the current $65 billion investment in universal broadband infrastructure and digital equity in the United States over the next five years, particularly to ensure that those most impacted by the digital divide are represented in solutions to the problems identified by the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act of 2021.

Investing in the Human Infrastructure of Broadband

I’m excited to announce that our collaborative final report, co-authored with Dr. Revati Prasad (Benton Institute for Broadband & Society) along with significant contributions from Dr. Caroline Stratton (National Digital inclusion Alliance) and Larra Clark (American Library Association) on the Human Infrastructure of Broadband is out today! The report, titled “From the Ground Up: investing in the Human Infrastructure of Broadband” features findings from our case studies, focus groups, and expert convening with leaders in the broadband and digital equity fields to understand how to sustain this work well into the future.

As we describe on the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society’s website,

“This report looks to the future, bringing together insights from previous research and convenings, to craft recommendations for how we can strengthen and sustain the human infrastructure of broadband.

Section I presents our recommendations for how to sustain this work going forward, informed by our research and the policy and expert convenings we conducted.
Sections II and III draw on case studies we commissioned and the three expert working groups we convened to present the dynamics of the human infrastructure of broadband at work.
We close by reiterating the ongoing, universal need for a human infrastructure of broadband and call on our field to build on the current momentum now.

While we outline potential actions at the national level, we are focused on local and state actions, too.

This report is written for policymakers at all levels of government, philanthropic and nonprofit organizations, and other stakeholders. We look forward to working with project partners and others on implementing the recommendations to sustain the human infrastructure of broadband even after current federal investments have ended.”

Empire State Development Funds Planning and Research For Digital Navigator Services

Southeastern NY Library Resources Council (Southeastern) has received a grant to evaluate its digital navigation services at libraries and community organizations across the Mid-Hudson Region.

The project, led by the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) in collaboration with Dr. Colin Rhinesmith, Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will provide insights to inform the growth of the Digital Navigators of the Hudson Valley service. Since its launch in 2022, the service has trained 125 digital navigators to support community members with internet adoption and the use of computing devices in partnership with the Mid-Hudson Library System, Ramapo Catskill Library System, and Westchester Library System.

The grant is one of twenty awarded through the Digital Equity Technical Assistance Fund, is part of Governor Hochul’s ConnectALL initiative to transform the state’s digital infrastructure and expand broadband access, affordability, and equity statewide. See a November 2024 press release for details about the grantees across all ten regions of New York State.

About Empire State Development

Empire State Development (ESD) is New York’s chief economic development agency (www.esd.ny.gov). The mission of ESD is to promote a vigorous and growing economy, encourage the creation of new job and economic opportunities, increase revenues to the State and its municipalities, and achieve stable and diversified local economies. Through the use of loans, grants, tax credits and other forms of financial assistance, ESD strives to enhance private business investment and growth to spur job creation and support prosperous communities across New York State. ESD is also the primary administrative agency overseeing the Regional Economic Development Councils and the marketing of “I LOVE NY,” the State’s iconic tourism brand. For more information on Regional Councils and Empire State Development, visit www.regionalcouncils.ny.gov and www.esd.ny.gov

New Article in Public Library Quarterly

My new article, titled “Public Libraries, Digital Equity Coalitions, and the Public Good” was published this week in Public Library Quarterly. The article features findings from a 2024 study of U.S. public libraries. The goal was to gain a deeper understanding of their role in digital equity coalitions, as the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has recognized that coalitions will play an important role in the success of their Internet for All initiative.

Here is a bit from the abstract:

“This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature by presenting findings from a pilot study of public libraries working with digital equity coalitions in the U.S. The findings from the survey revealed that public libraries support the public good through: (1) convening and leading digital equity coalitions; (2) participating in coalition action planning and advocacy to advance digital equity; and (3) actively centering equity, as opposed to equality, and social justice in their efforts to create and sustain healthy digital equity ecosystems. These findings suggest that if public libraries are to effectively lead and actively participate in digital equity coalitions they must not take a neutral stance to librarianship.”

I hope the findings from the article will be useful to public librarians, digital equity coalitions, policymakers, and others interested in learning more about how public libraries support digital equity through local, regional, and statewide coalitions.

Welcome to the DEAR Lab

The Digital Equity Action Research (DEAR) Laboratory in the School of Information Sciences (iSchool) engages in community-engaged and participatory research to advance digital equity in Illinois and worldwide. We partner with community-based organizations, government agencies, philanthropic organizations, and other entities to advance mutually-beneficial research initiatives that benefit those most impacted by digital inequities.