Today the Democracy Collaborative

convened scholars at the University of Maryland and community activists

from Prince George’s County to talk about working together. I participated

in a session on the arts, which generated numerous concrete, practical

ideas connected to the Prince George’s

Information Commons. There are ideas afoot in the County to develop

it as an arts center with a strong African American aspect, profiting

from the University’s presence. The people who met today may be able to

help by collecting information about existing arts assets and displaying

them either on maps or public databases (or in other ways). I also think

it would be useful to survey existing arts groups about their partnerships

and collaborations, in order to construct a diagram of the arts network

in the County. (Network mapping software can do this very nicely.)