The Community-Based Information Infrastructure of Older Adult Digital Learning: A Study of Public Libraries and Senior Centers in a Medium-sized City in the USA
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Noah Lenstra, Assistant Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: In the United States of America, senior centers and public libraries are ubiquitous socialinstitutions found in virtually every municipality. This article analyses these institutions ascommunity-based information infrastructure in the digital learning practices of older adults.Older adults turn to these institutions to learn technology in retirement. How learning takes placein these spaces is shaped both by the institutions, and by the older adults. Negotiations betweeninstitutions and older adults shape digital learning. These negotiations are shaped by societalageism. This article shows that older adults are not passive participants in technology learning,using services provided for them by others, but instead actively shape both how learning servicesare proffered and the institutional contexts in which these services exist. By learning to embracethe agency of older adults, these under-funded public institutions could powerfully reconfigurethemselves for an information society that is also ageing.
The Community-Based Information Infrastructure of Older Adult Digital Learning: A Study of Public Libraries and Senior Centers in a Medium-sized City in the USA
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Created on 9/15/2017
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Additional Information
- Publication
- NORDICOM Review, 38, Special Issue 1. 65-77.
- Language: English
- Date: 2017
- Keywords
- community informatics, library and information science, infrastructure studies ,
older adults, public libraries, senior centers