Ethics and Information Today: A Tangled Web

Information use is changing rapidly in the digital age, leading to complex intellectual property and ownership issues. Exploring the ethical implications of this new environment, specifically as they relate to information professionals, this text offers guidance on making ethical choices.

Today, professionals spanning all sectors of society face fast-changing information use questions related to Artificial Intelligence, scholarly communication, research practice, teaching pedagogies and platforms, data sharing, knowledge management, entrepreneurial endeavors, and service access and delivery. Further complicating matters are grassroots movements such as open access, open data, and open education.

This wide-ranging and thorough volume surveys historical traditions and principles in ethics and brings readers into the current digital landscape, where ethical issues are often complex and confounding. Covering subjects that range from big data and hacking to surveillance and access, it explores the background of each topic and describes how, where, and why ethical dilemmas arise within it. Through real-life examples, this timely text teaches students and practitioners how to identify an ethical dilemma, provides guidance on how to respond, explains how to separate personal belief from professional responsibility, and discusses how to make exceptions in a principled way.

James D. (＂Kip＂) Currier is an assistant professor at the School of Information Studies, University of Pittsburgh.