Libraries
Public Interest Partners welcomes the diverse voices, life experiences and raw and latent talent of the patrons who recognize the diverse value of public libraries, which include the students and job-seekers who are also served by the public education and workforce systems.
We take a holistic and asset-based approach to elevating and advancing the continuum of health, education, human resource, workforce, small business, community and economic development. Our objective is to ensure that education, skills development, job and career advancement and entrepreneurial opportunities are equitably available to all individuals. Articulation agreements between community colleges and universities can play vital roles in the process.
Public Interest Partners harnesses the collaborative power of the pen through journalism research, data journalism and solutions storytelling to inform and illuminate the processes, outcomes and impact of the public education, workforce and library systems. The process will align with news media to create local, state and national awareness of the positive impact that colleges and universities, local and state workforce development boards and agencies, and their respective strategic partners are having on academic-industry partnerships.
We reframe journalism not as the production of content for consumption but as an ongoing process of value co-creation between journalists and their communities. Audiences contribute ideas, data and feedback; journalists transform and interpret this information and together they generate social, cultural, and civic value. This relational understanding aligns naturally with the public service mission of journalism.
Service Innovation can provide a robust framework for re-envisioning local news media as a co-created, technology-enabled public service ecosystem. By adopting service-dominant logic, media organizations can move from transactional models toward relational, participatory and sustainable modes of value co-creation. This transformation not only strengthens the economic viability of local journalism but also revitalizes its democratic function of reconnecting communities through collaborative, trust-based information services.
Public Interest Partners is guided primarily by three publications, which significantly expanded our vision and continue to inform our work. They also provide a robust road map for data journalists, solutions storytellers, academic librarians, researchers and scientists to harness the collaborative and entrepreneurial power of the pen. They can form the connective media tissue required to inform and illuminate the processes, outcomes and impact of the enterprise.
Service in the AI Era: Science, Logic and Architecture Perspectives challenges all responsible actors – individuals, businesses, universities, and governments – to invest systematically and wisely in upskilling with AI. The service innovation community, itself, which includes scientific journals and book publishers, embodies a growing media ecosystem.
"Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology" conveys the importance of storytelling and investing in people to the advancement of public interest technology and the achievement of diverse, large-scale and sustainable social impact. The Council on Foundations and the Center for Public Interest Communications at the University of Florida have published an insightful study on storytelling, trust and philanthropy. https://cof.org/sites/default/files/documents/files/private/Philanthropys-New-Voice-Building-Trust-With-Deeper-Stories-and-Clear-Language.pdf
“Philanthropy’s New Voice: Building Trust With Deeper Stories and Clear Language”, offers science-backed strategies for foundations to build understanding and trust, starting with the words they use and the stories they tell. It is the result of a yearlong research collaboration between the Council on Foundations and the Center for Public Interest Communications.
