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.
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.
For further information about the HPIA research group, contact Don Fallis (fallis@email.arizona.edu).