The Poet thinks of community

All of this talk of libraries and how important they are to the communities in which they live has taken place without ever thinking of an underlying question: I have not yet taken the time to articulate exactly how I define community. To be honest, it seems hardly appropriate to take that responsibility on myself. The world in which I live is populated and changing. I acknowledge the clade - slightly modified for a social group whose common ancestor is more likely to be Biological Sciences or The Coffee House than a trilobite. Similarity does not necessitate contact, particularly not the continued contact over time and life changes that are, to me, indicators of the presence of community. 

Indicators, oblique and suggestive as they are, do much to define an event: the health of a pasture (leadplant); the presence of a city (population, population density, architectural diversity) or an empire (colonization, mono-language). 

Thinking about what defines community and all of the communities in my world inspired me to put together a list of similar indicators:

Geography: some defined site (web or corporeal) that is shared or is, as the horrible Library 2.0-ians have it, a destination. That destination is part of the community, and occasionally defines it by name.

Characteristic: an inside joke, shared attitude toward beanie babies, common belief system.

Artifacts: pamphlets, tattoos, you could make the argument for memories, behavioral patterns, obelisks.

Self-referential definition: membership in a community defines someone as a specific kind of person; the community's members define the present and future course of that community.

I have no personal evidence to suggest that a community must only be created or must only happen "organically" (as if organic growth is not deliberate, but I digress).  Time is a factor: time to develop relationships, time to earn/gain/pick a name, time to grow into an entity, however difficult to define. And members must share in the life of the community: events must be attended, the community must be referenced and perpetually re-defined (particularly if the definition is one that isn't supposed to change), the burden of obligations to the community must be justified.

All of the indicators that I've thought of and about require involvement and time. People have to maintain communities in order for them to continue, and if they do not continue then they remain social or political or work or neighbor groups.

I live in a town that has been around for about 150 years. There are artifacts of its earliest US history on every block, and everyone goes to church. What church is almost entirely defined by family and/or profession. I could spend days talking about everything that isn't being done to provide for a sustainable future as an independent community. I could spend just as much time talking about what is being done. There are more empty store fronts than full ones on the square, more than half of the restaurants in town are franchises, and the only grocery store is a Hy-Vee.

And yet, they all know each other. There is a fairly regular system of stratification that places you first at or not at the university, and then working or not working. They all eat at the crappy food places and at all the good food places and they all know Fred at the Hy-Vee (to be fair, there are few people who spend more than a few hours in Maryville who do not know Fred at the Hy-Vee). So, it may not be a self-sustainable community right now, but that wasn't the question, was it?

And on the much less serious side: I think a real community has its own indie self-assured love song:



And also: secret twitters at the ALA Conference. I love a good professional conference.

All communities need an underground to prove that the foundation is sitting on something.


*thanks to C and to A for the brilliant links, btw*