LVN fosters communication and removes barriers to understanding diverse views. LVN’s format and technology offers a way to reach underrepresented voices by eliminating barriers to traditional public meetings. By partnering with LVN, Madison Public Library has learned more about our community through Cortico’s “digital hearth” technology. The hearth’s capability to record, utilize voice recognition, transcribe, analyze and archive the conversations offers new possibilities for civic engagement.

Recognizing the library’s role in community discourse, Madison Public Library was asked to partner in the first citywide pilot of LVN. Trained discussion leaders held 69 conversations in early 2019, 20 in libraries. Local media shared stories featuring LVN conversations, providing a diversity of citizen viewpoints on issues such as health care, racial disparities and transportation. The library loaned and maintained recording devices, uploaded conversations to the LVN website and served on the planning team.

We will use LVN technology and methodology to expand our civic engagement efforts to help plan for service in a future 10th library, the Imagination Center at Reindahl Park. That site on the city’s underserved east side was chosen through an earlier planning process that involved a similar approach of recording community conversations and identifying common themes and concerns. Lessons learned from the pilot have helped launch new chapters of LVN in New York (in collaboration with NYPL) and Boston.