Public Forums for Today’s
Critical Issues
Midwinter Meeting Training
To Explore Americans’ Role in the World
Libraries are ideal places to convene public forums where members of the community can engage with each other to learn about complex public issues and practice deliberative democracy. Public forums transform libraries into spaces where Americans can discuss issues in a nonconfrontational, nonpartisan manner. Libraries—and librarians—play a vital role in promoting civil discourse within communities, on campuses, in schools, and in many different organizations.
U.S. communities, often partnering with libraries, have for more than 20 years used discussion guides provided by the National Issues Forum (NIF) to navigate through complicated issues. NIF is not an organization, but a nonpartisan, nationwide network of educational and community organizations that deliberate about national issues. It does not advocate a specific approach or point of view. Instead, the organization provides a mechanism for citizens to deliberate and exchange ideas and experiences with one another to make more thoughtful and informed decisions. NIF forum results are then shared with national and local leaders, and forum participants often join together to frame and address problems in their own communities.
At the heart of the deliberative forum process is the belief that citizens can seek out solutions and common ground on issues that affect their everyday lives. Unlike other public forums where citizens are invited to advocate a position in three-minute increments, deliberative forums encourage participants to listen to each other for deeper understanding and to express their personal values and concerns.
Each year, NIF develops discussion guides framed around three or four general approaches and commonly held values––each reflecting a different diagnosis of the problem or conclusion about what should be done. This format enables participants to see themselves in others who hold diametrically opposed views. Where debate often leads people to burrow into deeply entrenched positions, deliberation helps participants see the issue from each other’s vantage point. After engaging in a rather intense exchange with another participant, this perspective was recognized by one forum participant who exclaimed: “Wait a minute, I just realized that we both want the same thing; we’re just arguing about how to get it. Let’s talk about what we want and why we see things differently.”
A Different Kind of Talk
Forum and training workshops help people of diverse views find common ground for action on an issue of deep concern. It is a demanding process requiring consideration of viewpoints that do not necessarily appeal to most participants. But the method used to frame the issue helps participants interpret the issue in a way that makes sense. Today, Americans must find new ways to think, talk, and work together to make choices about critical issues of life and death such as going to war with Iraq and dealing with terrorism.
In California, a deliberative forum campaign focused on the affirmative action ballot measure.
The San Jose Mercury News provided a writer from the Kettering Foundation, the research organization affiliated with NIF, to develop a discussion guide. The state library provided funding for materials and moderators, and trained librarians to run workshops at such locations as the Public Policy Institute at the
University of California/Davis. Libraries nationwide have also hosted forums on topics such as national

security, Internet content, education, immigration, health care, international relations, and racial and ethnic tensions.
Deliberative forums have also found a home in libraries in emerging democracies. Svetlana
Gorokhova spent six months as a Kettering Foundation fellow developing a guide for Russians to use to discuss the restitution for art, rare books and other spoils of war. Gorokhova now serves as a leader in establishing such forums in Russian libraries. The results of civic forums, held in Russia and the U.S., on the relationship that citizens in each country want to have with each other will be released this spring.
NIF Comes to ALA
“Americans’ Role in the World” is the theme for training that will take place during the
American Library Association’s 2003 Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. It is designed to coincide with a national project, “By the People,” underway by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, producers of
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. A National Issues Convention (NIC), scheduled for January 11–13, in
Philadelphia, will serve as the kickoff for a yearlong program of deliberative forums to discuss “What
Should Be Americans’ Role in the World?” MacNeil/Lehrer Productions will videotape the NIC, and use it as the basis for special programming this month.
Following the deliberative polling model used by the NIC in 1996, a demographically representative group of citizens will participate in an opinion poll and convene in Philadelphia to deliberate on the topic with experts and policymakers. Throughout the year, public television stations, libraries, League of Women Voters, Chambers of Commerce, NIF, social service agencies, and others will convene forums on this topic. These events, which will be monitored and reported on as segments within regular NewsHour programming this spring and fall, will offer libraries a unique opportunity to collaborate with their local television stations and to bring members of the community together to talk about the critical issues facing Americans.
By convening forums in their own communities, librarians can foster deliberative democracy by creating experiences where citizens come together to talk about issues and help guide the country on its future course. We urge all those interested in Americans’ role in the world or in convening a local deliberative forum to participate in one of the events scheduled during the ALA Midwinter Meeting.
Conference participants will have three opportunities to learn about convening and moderating deliberative forums. A two-day workshop, January 23–24, will teach librarians to facilitate civil dialogue about important community issues using the NIF model. On January 23, conference attendees can participate in an open forum on the topic, “Americans’ Role in the World.” ALA members can also learn more about the work of their colleagues at a NIF Institute reception January 24. For more information on the NIF Midwinter programming, visit http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/publish/fennell/450/CIF_WEBPAGE/CIF.html
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ALA will also sponsor workshops at future conferences and link members with training and deliberative democracy opportunities closer to home.
Anne Heanue, retired Associate Director of the ALA Washington Office, attended the forum
training in June. Nancy Kranich is a past president of the American Library Association where she
focused on libraries and democracy. Taylor Willingham is a consultant offering training and consulting services for nonprofit organizations, including libraries and the National Issues Forums
Institute

SIDEBAR
Guidelines For a Forum
The moderator will guide the discussion yet remain neutral, and will make sure that:
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Everyone is encouraged to participate.
 Everyone understands that this is not a debate.
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No one or two individuals dominate.
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The discussion will focus on the choices.
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All the major choices or positions on the issue are considered.
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An atmosphere for discussion and analysis of alternatives is maintained.
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Everyone listens to each other.
Guidelines for a National Issues Forum
After a forum everyone should be able to…
 Identify the range of realistic alternatives and move toward a choice.
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Make a good case for those positions one dislikes as well as the position one likes, and consider choices one has not considered before.
Understand others have reasons for their choices and that their reasons are very interesting—not dumb, unreasonable, or immoral.
 Realize one’s own knowledge is not complete until one understands why others feel the way they do about the choices.
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Consider the underlying values of each choice.
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Leave the forum “thinking hard” about the choices.
( From material created for National Issues Forums)
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