City Research Online

Abstract

The purpose of this editorial review is to re-examine the prospect that Luciano Floridi's Philosophy of Information (PI), and information ethics (IE) may serve as the conceptual foundation for library and information science (LIS), and that LIS may thus be seen as applied PI. This re-examination is timely, fifteen years after this proposal was first made, in light of the development and wider acceptance of the PI concept itself, of advances in information technologies and changes in the information environment, and of the consequent, and continuing, need for LIS to re-evaluate its nature and role. We first give a brief and selective account of the introduction and consequent reception of the idea of PI as the basis for LIS; more detailed account of the origins of PI, and its initial reception within LIS, have been given by Furner (2010), by Fyffe (2015), and by Van der Veer Martens (2015). Then we consider whether such a basis is, in fact, needed, and, if so, what the other possibilities might be, and then examine five particular aspects of the relation between LIS and PI. The conclusions, for those who do not make to the end, are that such a foundation is indeed needed, and that PI is the most appropriate basis.

Publication Type:	Article
Subjects:	Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z665 Library Science. Information Science
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity > Media, Culture & Creative Industries > Library & Information Science
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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