Asst. Prof. Kathleen Lourdes B. Obille published an article entitled "Truth and Agency: Rethinking the Definition of Information" in the latest issue of Library Trends!
Asst. Prof. Obille's paper "argues that while truth is appealing and compelling as a necessary condition in defining information, this limits our understanding of information. It argues for truth-neutral definitions of information and acknowledges epistemic agents as the center for understanding information. It also argues that meaning and truth are co-constructed by epistemic agents, thus giving the agency to the receiver(s) of information as they make sense of it in their varying contexts. With the need to understand how information plays within communities, and how communities make sense of information and form knowledge, library and information science should not only turn to philosophy of information but complement it with social epistemology. Acknowledging the agency of individuals and the contributions of other individuals to the process of information, I refer to social epistemology as a framework for the practice of library and information science and to philosophy of information as the framework for understanding information concepts. This acknowledges that being informed is an individual as well as a community process." (Obille, 2024)
Library Trends is published quarterly by the School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and explores critical trends in professional librarianship, and includes practical applications, thorough analyses, and literature reviews.
The full paper can be accessed at https://muse.jhu.edu/article/952293
Published: 2025-02-28 04:40:54