With the recent changes that have occurred within the records environment, such as the problems of electronic records and increased demands for the societal accountability of the profession, archivists have had to rethink many of the principles that guide their activities. In other words, this concerns the connections between archival practice and archival theory, the latter of which has recently become a valid area of inquiry within professional discourse. Starting with the early professional literature contesting the need for archival theory and its necessary connection to archival practice, this section will address one ideology within clear roots in archivistics, that of Positivism. We will see that its â naturalizationâ (a process important to the concretization of ideology) was challenged through early literature on the subject. The threat to such deeply entrenched ideology was viewed within the profession either as a much-needed change or as a threat to the role of the archivist. Ultimately, the problematization of this ideology will inform the other two areas of analysis within this paper: the examination of â archival truthâ and the problems of representation within archives.

Purpose: To provide an introduction to concepts and resources that will be useful to library professionals learning about information ethics. Methodology: This paper argues for the importance of information ethics to 21st century library professionals. It describes what various authors have said about how information ethics can be applied to the ethical dilemmas faced by library professionals. Findings: In order to deal effectively with their ethical dilemmas, library professionals must have a good working knowledge of information ethics. Codes of professional ethics can help to provide such knowledge, but they are not sufficient. Courses on information ethics must be part of the education of information professionals. Such courses should provide library professionals with an understanding of ethical theories and how they apply to concrete practical cases. Such courses should also make explicit the connection between information ethics and the mission of the library professional. Research limitations: This paper is not intended to provide an exhaustive list of publications on the topic of information ethics and library professionals. Value: This paper provides library professionals with a concise introduction to information ethics.

This article chronicles more than 30 years of public opinion, politics, and law and policy on privacy and confidentiality that have had far-reaching consequences for access by the social research community to administrative and statistical records produced by government. A hostile political environment, public controversy over the decennial census long form, media coverage, and public fears about the vast accumulations of personal information by the private sector were catalysts for a recent proposal by the U.S. Bureau of the Census that would have significantly altered the contents of the 2000 census Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). These events show clearly that science does not operate independently from the political sphere but may be transformed by a political world where powerful interests lead government agencies to assume responsibility for privacy protection that can result in reducing access to statistical data.

A brief explanation of what the free culture movement is and the various factors that led to its fighting to preserve the commons, including corporations and special interests trying to restrict the commons to protect their interests, the development of the open source community, technological developments, such as the Internet and digital copying of media, the development of web 2.0 and its philosophies, current state of copyright law and youth culture.

This is a submission to the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM 2006. This paper examines the participation, or nonparticipation, of the patient in the medical record process has been viewed through Foucaultâ s lens of power relations.

This preprint has been published in Human Dimensions of Wildlife 11(3). State wildlife agencies have little guidance about what Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) information to present on their Websites. This article describes four approaches to public information publication (private citizen view, attentive citizen view, deliberative citizen view, stakeholder publisher) that agency staff can employ to consider what CWD information to offer to the public.

This preprint has been published in Human Dimensions of Wildlife 11(3) 2006. State wildlife agencies have little guidance about what Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) information to present on their Websites. This article describes four approaches to public information publication (private citizen view, attentive citizen view, deliberative citizen view, stakeholder publisher) that agency staff can employ to consider what CWD information to offer to the public.

This is a preprint accepted for publication in Government Information Quarterly (2007) 24(1), pg. 64-88. This paper develops a framework to assess the text-based public information provided on program level government agency Websites. The framework informs the larger e-government question of how, or whether, state administrative agencies are using Websites in a transformative capacity - to change relationships between citizens and government. It focuses on assessing the degree to which text information provided on government Websites could facilitate various relationships between government agencies and citizens. The framework incorporates four views of government information obligations stemming from different assumptions about citizen-government relationships in a democracy: the private citizen view, the attentive citizen view, the deliberative citizen view and the citizen-publisher view. Each view suggests inclusion of different types of information. The framework is employed to assess state Websites containing information about Chronic Wasting Disease, a disease effecting deer and elk in numerous U.S. states and Canada.

This article extends Stratford's brief observations about the problematic status of racial and ethnic group statistics to a discussion of the relationship among these statistics, public policy, and the conceptual status of race and ethnicity. Federal statistics are organizational products that are socially constructed. They represent the implementation of public policies that govern political, social, and economic life. It is the interaction between politics and the subjective meaning of race and ethnicity that is responsible for the continual modification of racial and ethnic group statistics. The article discusses the premises on which racial and ethnic group statistics have been based and illustrates how they were implemented in the instructions of the decennial censuses for classifying the race and ethnicity of the population. The article then summarizes some of the empirical evidence from recent research conducted by federal agencies and social scientists to show that racial and ethnic group statistics produced by government record keeping systems have no objective status. The meaning of race and ethnicity is contextual, situational, and subjective, and, thus, how respondents and observers define these concepts has significant consequences for the quality of federal statistics.

Public concern about personal privacy has recently focused on issues of Internet data security and personal information as big business. The scientific discourse about information privacy focuses on the crosspressures of maintaining confidentiality and ensuring access in the context of the production of statistical data for public policy and social research and the associated technical solutions for releasing statistical data. This article reports some of the key findings from a smallscale survey of organizational practices to limit disclosure of confidential information prior to publishing public use microdata files, and illustrates how the rules for preserving confidentiality were applied in practice. Explanation for the apparent deficits and wide variations in the extent of knowledge about statistical disclosure limitation (SDL) methods is located in theories of organizational life and communities of practice. The article concludes with suggestions for improving communication between communities of practice to enhance the knowledge base of those responsible for producing public use microdata files.