Research Group on the
History and Philosophy of Information Access
Many academic organizations and research groups study the History and Philosophy of some particular topic, such as Science, Mathematics, Art, Medicine, Economics, Education, Technology, etc. In line with this tradition, several faculty members at the University of Arizona’s School of Information Resources and Library Science study the History and Philosophy of Information Access (HPIA). Thus, we have formed the HPIA research group.
Mission:
Access to information is critical to modern life. In order to survive and flourish, people need to have access to information about health, careers, politics, public safety, science, technology, etc. Access to information that enlightens and entertains is also intrinsically valuable to human beings. The main function of libraries, the Internet, books, the mass media, museums, and many government agencies is to provide access to such information. But in order to design systems and organizations that effectively provide such access, we need to know how such systems and organizations have operated in the past and to think about how they ought to operate in the future. With this goal in mind, the HPIA research group examines through the lens of history and philosophy such topics as intellectual freedom, knowledge acquisition, open access, organization of information, literacy, information privacy, preservation of documents, scholarly communication, intellectual property, equitable access to libraries, and the digital divide.
Current Activities:
- The SIRLS Faculty has a large number of publications in the area of HPIA. Many of these publications are available online through the Digital Library of Information Science and Technology.
- The SIRLS Faculty organizes a regular series of Research Brown Bags. Many of these research presentations are in the area of HPIA.
- Eminent philosophers of information (Luciano Floridi) and historians of information (Paul Duguid) have delivered ISI Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lectures at SIRLS.
- Members of the SIRLS Faculty are on the organizing committee of the annual Information Ethics Roundtable. SIRLS hosted the 2007 Information Ethics Roundtable on the topic of Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Property.
Related Links:
- Ethics and Information Technology
- International Center for Information Ethics
- Libraries and the Cultural Record
- Library History Seminar
- Library Philosophy and Practice
- Oxford University Research Group on the Philosophy of Information
- Library and Information History Group
- Library History Roundtable
- Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing
Contact Information:
For further information about the HPIA research group, contact Don Fallis (fallis@email.arizona.edu).
