Community Networking & Profiling Service

THL Toolbox > Community & Communication > THL Community Profiling & Networking Service

THL Profiling & Community Networking Service

Contributor(s): David Germano, Steve Weinberger.

Overview

THL is currently (November 2008) working on implementing a new software system enabling people, projects and organizations involved in Tibetan Studies, Tibetan education, and Tibetan Community Services organizations overall. This allows the concerned individuals and organizations to describe themselves, as well as network with each other. It will also be used for profiling THL participants. We anticipate launching these services in March 2009, and in the meantime have had to take our previous systems offline.

These services are offered for people, organizations and projects involved in the production and dissemination of knowledge about and/or in Tibet and the Himalayas, as well as those actively benefiting communities therein on a non-profit basis. One need not have any relationship or affiliation with THL to make an entry and publicize your work. It is a do-it-yourself resource in which anyone can get an ID and password, and then create an entry which the user can update at any time. Each person, organization and project maintains their own entries, and the public is able to search across these entries according to various criteria. Entries are entirely self-sufficient and completely determined by their owners – no information can be altered or supplemented by anyone other than a given entry's owner. An entry implies nothing about any membership or involvement within THL itself – the Community Networking Service is a broad Community service offered by THL. Individuals and organizations can utilize it to publicize their activities, interests and products, while the public can utilize it to find out information about individuals, organizations and projects corresponding to their interests. This can include commercial concerns involved with knowledge, such as book publishers. THL reserves the right to deny any entry that does not conform to these guidelines.

We separately extract THL participant entries from the overall repository to profile their work. These pages are then a resource to consult in and of themselves to better understand THL’s creative agents and also to document the role of any one agent in the broader set of activities in THL. In addition, THL utilizes these entries as home pages for participants to link to whenever an agent, organization, or project is cited within THL. For example, every project portal page in THL has a “read more” link, which goes directly to the THL Participant page for that project; all project portal pages have a “participant” link, which displays the names and short descriptions of each participant with links to each person’s THL Participant home page; and all “project” buttons that go to a list of projects associated with a given area of THL, such as literary projects, also list projects names and information drawn from these repositories.

Whom is this Service for?

The Service is primarily intended for individuals and organizations who are professionally involved with the production and dissemination of knowledge in any discipline about the geographic and cultural area of Tibet and the Himalayas (also known as the Greater Himalayan region), who are involved with education in the region, or who are involved with community services and support in the region. It is not not intended for registering historical persons or institutions, but for individuals, organizations and projects active in relationship to Tibet and the Himalayas today. It has nothing to do with participation in THL in any other context, but rather is a public facility offered by THL.

Three Types of Entry

Entries are divided into three types:

People: Artists, creative writers, development workers, educational administrators, librarians, photographers, scholars (including graduate students), teachers, technologists, translators
Organizations: Colleges, Development NGOs, Foundations, Libraries, Museums, Publishers, Religious Centers, Research Institutions, Schools, Universities
Projects: Initiatives aiming at discrete products and lacking independent institutional identity and infrastructure, but usually (though not always) involving more than one person and extended over a period of years

Geographic Coverage

The Community Service’s intended scope is all of Cultural Tibet and all of the southern Himalayan regions in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bhutan. We welcome scholars, educators, and community service works active anywhere within this broad area to participate in the Service. If your cultural area is not included within the edit options, just contact us and we will considering adding it in. For example, we welcome Mongolian areas that practice Tibetan Buddhism, or Kashmir specialists, in addition to of course all of Nepal, all of cultural Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh, Spiti, Baltista,n and so forth.

Individuals

We welcome applications from teachers, scholars, librarians, artists, photographers and other individuals with a serious commitment to this region of the world in their professional activities. This does not include those with a casual interest in the area, nor those whose activities are chiefly commercial and so forth without a strong connection to knowledge. The definition is broader for inhabitants of the region itself – for inhabitants, we welcome the membership of educators of all types, artists, photographers and so forth, even if their specific work does not always directly concern the region itself.

Organizations

Universities, colleges, libraries, museums, monasteries, schools, research institutions, and community services organizations are the primary focus, with the criteria being the possession of significant teaching, research, or collections pertaining to the area. Again our definition is broader for organizations based in the Tibet and Himalayas, in which case we welcome all organizations to apply. We are eager to have foundations and development aid organizations join if they have prominent interests or activities in the area. We welcome religious organizations to apply, such as monasteries in the area or religious centers around the world whose activities focus on religious traditions deriving from this part of the world.

Projects

We welcome the registration of projects focused on production of knowledge of all types about the region, the dissemination of knowledge for residents in the area, and the provision of community services to the region. Projects based in the area again are welcome on a broader basis (i.e. a project devoted to knowledge by Nepalis about Europe, for example, would be welcome), while projects based outside of the area being limited to those with a significant interest in Tibet and Himalayas.

The distinction between organization and project may seem confusing, but in practice it is fairly clear. "Organizations" have permanent existence and an institutional identity, and may well run multiple projects. "Projects" in contrast are more temporary initiatives aiming at discrete products and lacking independent institutional identity and infrastructure. Projects generally involve more than one individual, but in some cases may be largely the work of one individual. In many cases, projects will involve individuals and organizations with their own separate entries. A large project with staffing, organizational identity, and a long term existence – such as the Tibetan and Himalayan Library – should be considered an organization rather than a project; however projects with smaller scope and more finite aims should be listed under projects. For example, THL itself is listed under organizations, but many of its individual components can be found under "Projects". A simple book project by one author should not be listed under "projects", though a multi-year plan by one author to translate an entire corpus should. Entries should be for active initiatives, and hence projects that are already finished or which have a very limited temporal scope most likely should instead be submitted to the THL Bibliographical resources, rather than the Roster. The Roster is intended as a dynamic, interactive guide to individuals, organizations and projects active at present.

If you are still uncertain whether you should apply for a member entry in the Roster, please contact us THL for assistance.

We encourage people to use Unicode diacritics for representing Sanskrit and other languages that need special diacritic marks when represented in Roman script. These diacritics can be used in searches as well. See under "Unicode diacritic fonts" for help in setting up your computer with the necessary fonts and keyboards go to the THL Toolbox Fonts Page.