In the broadest sense a Community Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia that deals with matters related and of interest to a particular community.
It could be argued that this site itself is a community encyclopedia, in that it deals with matters related and of interest to the local government community, but in local government the term community is generally used to refer to the residents of a particular municipality.
This page has been set up to explore the concept of an encyclopedia that is:
- editable by both council staff and community members, and devoted to:
- documenting the history of communities and the assets and facilities used by those communites, how they are being used and how they could be used into the future,
- building stronger communities by allowing and encouraging community members to work together to tell the story of the community.
Most of the assets and facilities constructed, managed and operated by Councils are community assets and of interest to community members.
Councils have a great deal of information about these assets and facilities, that users and potential users may not have access to, e.g.
- how much assets & facilities cost to construct and maintain,
- when they are due for renewal,
- where the nearest one is,
but there are some things Councils don't necessarily know about their facilities, e.g.
- who is using them and what they're using them for,
- what users like and dislike about them,
- how users think they could be improved.
A community encyclopedia could help improve communication between Councils and their communities and help answer and/or disseminate the answers to some of these questions.
Council does its best to tell the community about its assets and ask them what they think of the assets, but there is always room for improvement.
Setting up a community encyclopedia need not be an expensive or time consuming exercise, as this trial site shows. All that is required is the will to make it happen.
Other Use Cases
- Educating school students about;
- their local community,
- wikis,
- creative commons licencing,
- organising street parties,
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