Smart Library on Urban Poverty Research -- now available on the Internet at www.ksg.harvard.edu/urbanpoverty or www.societyonline.org/urbanpoverty -- was developed by Kennedy School professor William Julius Wilson in cooperation with the National Institute of Social Science Information (NISSI), a leader in the area of innovative electronic information management.

"With the push to provide Internet access to all, irrespective of race, gender, income level, political orientation or religious affiliation, it is critical that information be made accessible to a wide audience in a manner that is useful and readily interpretable," said Wilson. "Smart Library is a compilation of important research findings covering an array of general interest topics."

Wilson continued, "We want to get the information out there so that people can read it for themselves and be aware of the complex causes and consequences of persistent poverty. Up until now only a select group had access to all of this valuable information in scientific journals and academic books. We are just changing the way information is disseminated. It is an attempt to put the 'public' back into 'public policy.'"

Currently, Smart Library has information on the following areas: Urban Community -- looking at the trends in urban poverty, the effects of poverty on communities, and policies and programs for helping poor urban communities; Urban Poverty and the Family -- providing information on national and ethnic trends in family structure, an explanation of family breakdown, and the effects of poverty on families; Urban Poverty and the Economy -- focusing on socioeconomic trends among groups, theories of urban economy, the effect of economic forces on the inner city, and economic policies; and Work and Welfare -- for information on the trends in work and welfare, explanations for welfare use, the effects of employment on welfare use, and welfare and work policies.

Smart Library uses state-of-the-art technology from QuestWare that links user questions to expert information in an interactive environment modeled on conversation. This technology provides users with a way to navigate from text to text by asking questions and looking for answers -- users are no longer limited to the single perspective of one piece of research because questions raised by one piece of research are answered by other pieces of research.

The content of Smart Library was carefully chosen by a national panel of experts. The national panel includes Wilson, who is director of the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program at the Kennedy School; Rebecca Blank, member of the Council of Economic Advisors to President Clinton and first director of the Joint Center for Poverty Research; Elijah Anderson, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania; Mary Jo Bane, professor of public policy at the Kennedy School; John Kasarda, Kenan Professor of Business Administration at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and Lawrence Mead, professor of politics at New York University.

Funding for the development of Smart Library was made available by the Ford Foundation.

For more information on the Smart Library on Urban Poverty, please contact Scott Parrott at (312) 988-6589.