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This chapter examines the extent to which place based and research oriented university-community engagement (UCE) models can sustain UCE in “non-campus” rural settings. It examines how effective partnerships function in non-campus rural settings, and their contributions to achieving the reciprocal aims of communities and universities. It highlights the key successes, challenges, and opportunities experienced through case studies in non-campus locations in rural Australia (Flinders University Rural Clinical School), rural Sweden (Centre for Rural Health, Storuman), and rural Canada (Northern Ontario School of Medicine). Information provided about the discussed case studies has been provided by the organizations themselves, and the chapter authors are heads of these organizations. The authors share their knowledge of the history, the challenges, the opportunities, and the mechanisms through which the models interact with the partners.

This study aims to better understand the key factors that affect the quality of care that patients with Hepatitis C are likely to receive in rural communities and to consider how to build a more effective health support system for the rural residents.

This qualitative study with a grounded theory approach allowed us to draw a conceptual map of the occurrence while informants had the opportunity to contemplate and share their thoughts on the issues, which led into new understandings of the subject matter.

The local leaders held a romanticized view toward rural life while the disadvantaged reported a sense of powerlessness to bring about the needed changes to help them battle Hepatitis C.

Although describing a single social setting provides in-depth description, generalizability to other settings is always a limitation. If one wishes to start a support group, he/she may have to start asking the clergy of different churches to be the cofounders of the support group organization.

Churches may have the most potential to bring about the needed changes in rural settings by fostering a supportive heath care environment in their communities.

This chapter discusses the application of community informatics (CI) principles in the rural Southern and Central Appalachian (SCA) region to further the teaching of information and communication technologies (ICT) literacy concepts in courses that formed part of two externally funded grants, “Information Technology Rural Librarian Master’s Scholarship Program Part I” (ITRL) and “Part II” (ITRL2), awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program to the School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Tennessee (UT).

The chapter documents ICT use in ITRL and ITRL2 to extend librarian technology literacy training, allowing these public information providers to become change agents in the twenty-first century. It discusses aspects of CI that influenced these two projects and shaped the training of future rural library leaders embedded in traditionally underrepresented areas to further social justice and progressive changes in the region’s rural communities.

The chapter demonstrates the role that CI principles played in the context of ITRL and ITRL2 from project inception to the graduation of the rural librarians with examples of tangible IT services/products that the students developed in their courses that were directly applicable and tailored to their SCA contexts.

ITRL and ITRL2 provided a unique opportunity to apply a CI approach to train information librarians as agents of change in the SCA regions to further economic and cultural development via technology and management competencies. These change agents will continue to play a significant role in community building and community development efforts in the future.

Towns and cities across Canada face rapidly changing economic circumstances and many are turning to a variety of strategies, including tourism, to provide stability in their communities. Community Economic Development (CED) has become an accepted form of economic development, with recognition that such planning benefits from a more holistic approach and community participation. However, much of why particular strategies are chosen, what process the community undertakes to implement those choices and how success is measured is not fully understood. Furthermore, CED lacks a developed theoretical basis from which to examine these questions. By investigating communities that have chosen to develop their tourism potential through the use of murals, these various themes can be explored. There are three purposes to this research: (1) to acquire an understanding of the “how” and the “why” behind the adoption and diffusion of mural-based tourism as a CED strategy in rural communities; (2) to contribute to the emerging theory of CED by linking together theories of rural geography, rural change and sustainability, and rural tourism; and (3) to contribute to the development of a framework for evaluating the potential and success of tourism development within a CED process.

Two levels of data collection and analysis were employed in this research. Initially, a survey of Canadian provincial tourism guides was conducted to determine the number of communities in Canada that market themselves as having a mural-based tourism attraction (N=32). A survey was sent to these communities, resulting in 31 responses suitable for descriptive statistical analysis, using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). A case study analysis of the 6 Saskatchewan communities was conducted through in-depth, in person interviews with 40 participants. These interviews were subsequently analyzed utilizing a combined Grounded Theory (GT) and Content Analysis approach.

The surveys indicated that mural development spread within a relatively short time period across Canada from Chemainus, British Columbia. Although tourism is often the reason behind mural development, increasing community spirit and beautification were also cited. This research demonstrates that the reasons this choice is made and the successful outcome of that choice is often dependent upon factors related to community size, proximity to larger populations and the economic (re)stability of existing industry. Analysis also determined that theories of institutional thickness, governance, embeddedness and conceptualizations of leadership provide a body of literature that offers an opportunity to theorize the process and outcomes of CED in rural places while at the same time aiding our understanding of the relationship between tourism and its possible contribution to rural sustainability within a Canadian context. Finally, this research revealed that both the CED process undertaken and the measurement of success are dependent upon the desired outcomes of mural development. Furthermore, particular attributes of rural places play a critical role in how CED is understood, defined and carried out, and how successes, both tangible and intangible, are measured.

This chapter assesses the effects of two rural community residential advantages – economic growth and availability of health services – upon residents’ health and emotional well-being.

A de facto experimental design divided communities into four analytical types based on their economic growth and health services. Household survey data were gathered via a drop-off/pickup procedure and 400 randomly selected households were surveyed in each location. Physical health was measured with a subset of items from the Medical Outcomes Study’s 36-item short form. A 10-item emotional well-being index was used. Beyond sociodemographic items, questions concerned household assets, medical problems, social supports, and community ties. Nested regression analyses were used to assess the effects of residential advantage upon health, net of potentially confounding factors.

Contrary to expectations, both residential advantages were necessary for improved health. The most important negative net effect on health was aging. Beyond household assets and community economic expansion, miles commuted to work was the next most important factor enhancing physical health. In all types of communities, residents’ emotional well-being scores were independent of age, but positively related to household income and religious involvement.

Obviously the study is limited by geography and by the small number of communities in each residential type. While we could measure the effects of household members not being able to address all health needs, we could not assess the effects of such problems on anyone else in the households beyond the respondents. Our survey approach is also unable to address the effects of rural residents being unable to meet their health needs over time.

Ours is the first study that we know of applying a de facto natural experimental design to assess community residential effects. The interrelated effects of residential community resources for residents’ health suggests that more studies like this one should be done.

This chapter deploys qualitative interviews with employees of rural South Carolina cultural institutions to assess the state of their rural community archives in order to understand both the practices and needs of the institutions within their relationship to larger, traditional archives with the aim to better understand national trends around community archives.

The research uses open-ended qualitative interviews based on snowball sampling focused on cultural institutions in populations defined as “rural” by the state of South Carolina. Using snowball sampling allowed for communities to self-identify other cultural institutions previously overlooked in surveys of rural South Carolina archival holdings.

Findings from the interviews provide new community-defined understandings of both practices and needs of rural community archives. Valuable insights include the following:

• A clear awareness on the part of rural community archives of their relationship to larger practices of archiving

• Notable moments of creativity by rural community archives concerning long-term self-sustenance

• A continued need for low-cost, low-barrier methods of digital outreach for both preservation and communication

• A more direct stream of access to grant funding favoring community archival practitioners over user-based research funding

A clear awareness on the part of rural community archives of their relationship to larger practices of archiving

Notable moments of creativity by rural community archives concerning long-term self-sustenance

A continued need for low-cost, low-barrier methods of digital outreach for both preservation and communication

A more direct stream of access to grant funding favoring community archival practitioners over user-based research funding

While many examples of community-based archival practice exist within British, Australian, and New Zealand research, such studies remain sparse and entity specific within the United States. This continued lack of case studies and models for understanding and aiding rural, community archives within the United States is only amplified when divided by regions and states. By focusing directly on the concerns of practitioners working to preserve and make available localized histories, this research illuminates both the incredible agency of rural community cultural institutions while re-conceptualizing the needs of such groups.

This ethnographic case study examined college pathways of rural, first-generation students. Current research primarily examines factors predicting rural students’ college aspirations, participation, and completion. This study examined why and how such factors influenced students in a rural, high-poverty county and explored how rural culture influenced pathways. The study found that attachment to family significantly influenced college-going decisions and behaviors. Families provided support necessary for high aspirations, college-going, and persistence. Students’ decision to leave, return, or stay was difficult given this attachment; yet, lack of economic opportunity affected decisions also. Cultural legacies influenced college-going. Schools, communities, and peers were also relevant. Given the importance of family, institutional, state, and federal policies and practices must involve families and replicate family support models.

This chapter explores differences in fringe, distant, and remote rural public library assets for asset-based community development (ABCD) and the relationships of those assets to geographic regions, governance structures, and demographics.

The author analyzes 2013 data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture using nonparametric statistics and data mining random forest supervised classification algorithms.

There are statistically significant differences between fringe, distant, and remote library assets. Unexpectedly, median per capita outlets (along with service hours and staff) increase as distances from urban areas increase. The Southeast region ranks high in unemployment and poverty and low in median household income, which aligns with the Southeast’s low median per capita library expenditures, staff, hours, inventory, and programs. However, the Southeast’s relatively high percentage of rural libraries with at least one staff member with a Master of Library and Information Science promises future asset growth in those libraries. State and federal contributions to Alaska libraries propelled the remote Far West to the number one ranking in median per capita staff, inventory, and programs.

This study is based on IMLS library system-wide data and does not include rural library branches operated by nonrural central libraries.

State and federal contributions to rural libraries increase economic, cultural, and social capital creation in the most remote communities. On a per capita basis, economic capital from state and federal agencies assists small, remote rural libraries in providing infrastructure and services that are more closely aligned with libraries in more populated areas and increases library assets available for ABCD initiatives in otherwise underserved communities.

Even the smallest rural library can contribute to ABCD initiatives by connecting their communities to outside resources and creating new economic, cultural, and social assets.

Analyzing rural public library assets within their geographic, political, and demographic contexts highlights their potential contributions to ABCD initiatives.

Grassroots activists leverage innovative, justice-oriented strategies to address wide-scale problems like climate change, life-threatening poverty, threats to Indigenous land rights, and racialised incarceration while simultaneously navigating highly localised issues like food insecurity. In the United States, urban activists are associated with large-scale demonstrations and social justice campaigns, yet rural community leaders have been campaigning against inequality and racism for decades, rarely receiving similar nuanced attention. Beyond differences in awareness and recognition, rural and urban activism generally operate independently from one another. However, more robust alliances across community types are needed more than ever to tackle today’s most pressing social problems. In this chapter, the authors draw on their scholarship on urban and rural activism to show that both varieties share common features, including a critical, political, and sociological consciousness with a core mission of social justice through community mobilisation. From this, the authors discuss common differences between urban and rural activism, reflect on the role of activist scholars in supporting (more unified) struggles for justice, and address some critical issues regarding academics who wish to study or work with activists and social movements.