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Resource Collection

While you are working on the community directory you might make lists of resources about the community. These will be especially useful if you are going to write a community profile or community study. It may include:

• A list of places, contact people and organisations and the kind of information you might get from each.
  
• A list of books, reports and documents with useful information, showing author, date, title, city and publisher, the kind of information each contains and where you can find it,
  
• A list of people who might be useful informants including community workers, elders and others. Include name, position, address, phone number, and the kind of information each might have. Do not pass on names and private addresses if this might breach confidentiality.
  
• A collection of documents, leaflets, directories and written information organised in folders or files so you can find them when you want them.

While you are making your lists and collecting resources, remember that the main kinds of information you will be interested in are:

¢ Public records: Information on the public record includes census data, local government reports, published reports, local newspapers, annual reports and studies, published directories, leaflets and brochures. This information is available to anyone, and can be collected without special permission.

¢ Agency records: Organisations and government departments which service the community may make information from their records available, provided that confidentiality is respected. Annual reports of organisations are often very useful sources of information. Agency records which are not in the public domain cannot be used without permission.

¢ Indigenous knowledge: The knowledge which members of the community have about themselves, often handed down from parents to children, or verbally through a network or grapevine. This knowledge can be included with the permission of community members. The source should always be acknowledged.

¢ Research data: Interviews, surveys, participant observation and other first-hand collections of data are governed by the ethics and rules for research. Proper permission is always required before this information can be used, unless you source it from published journals or reports.

Remember that members of the community should be involved in the community profile from the very start. There is no point in planning to profile a community if the members of that community do not want a profile to be done.

One of the first tasks is to form a community profile team. A useful place to start is with fellow students. If different skills, abilities and interests of students from different backgrounds are combined effectively, and if you can work well together, you can end up with a much better final profile. If none of the students in the community profile team are members of the community, you should try to get the active support of someone who lives or works in the community. If no one in the community is willing to support your profile, you are probably in the wrong place.

Start collecting resources you will use in your community profile. You might make:

• a list of places, contact people and organisations and the kind of information you might get, in your community directory.
  
• a list of books, reports and documents with useful information, showing author, date, title, city and publisher, the kind of information each contains and where you can find it,
  
• a list of people who might be useful informants including community workers, elders and others. Include name, position, address, phone number, and the kind of information each might have. Do not pass on names and private addresses if this might breach confidentiality.

While you are making your lists and collecting resources, remember that most of the information you will be interested in have already been collected by other people. You will find a section about making use of existing information later in this guide, and in Chapter 4 of Hawtin, Hughes and Percy-Smith (1994).

Indigenous knowledge is the knowledge which members of the community have about themselves, often handed down from parents to children, or verbally through a network or grapevine. This knowledge can be included with the permission of community members. The source should always be acknowledged.

You may collect some information using interviews, surveys, participant observation and other first-hand collections of data, for use in your profile. Proper permission is always required before this information can be used.

Collect information which you can use under all the main headings in the outline community profile which is later in this guide.