Ethics and Information in the Digital Age Rafael Capurro University of Applied Sciences, Germany LIDA 2001, Dubrovnik, Croatia, May, 2001

Introduction Ethics as ‘practical philosophy’ (= individual ethics, economics, politics) Information ethics as a descriptive theory and as an emancipatory theory History of information ethics: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of access

Introduction (cont.) The UDHR as basis for ethical thinking in the information field: –Respect for the dignity of human beings (Art. 1) –Confidentiality (Art. 1, 2, 3, 6) –Equality of opportunity (Art. 2, 7) –Privacy (Art. 3, 12) –Right to freedom of opinion and expression (Art. 19) –Right to participate in the cultural life of the community (Art. 27) –Right to the protection of the moral and material interests concerning any scientific, literary or artistic production (Art. 27)

Introduction (cont.) Same of the changes caused by the massive diffusion of ICT: - creation of specialized knowledge markets - development of digital libraries and archives - development of electronic commerce - publication and diffusion of scientific knowledge through the Internet - creation of services for public access to the Internet - creation of educational services based on ICT - promotion of local cultures in the digital medium - development of communities independently of geographic boundaries - participation of individuals and groups in the political process

Introduction (cont.) Barriers that may cause exclusion of users from the benefits of ICT: Economic barriers: energy, telephne, servers, hardware, software Technical barriers: costs of acquisition, use and updating Cultural barriers: information illiteracy, biases, domination of English

Ethical Challenges of Digital Libraries Value-added characteristics of digital libraries: Access to documents independently of time and space combination of documents of different types in different archives search for documents and non-digital information on the basis of search engines and online catalogs combination of information and communication processes

Ethical Challenges (cont.) Some technical and organization problems related to the creaton of digital libraries: Formats (pdf, HTML, gif) Content Sustainability Copyright Fair Use Financing Cataloging Search capabilities

Ethical Challanges (cont.) Ethical questions concerning collection and classification Intellectual property Ethical questions concerning information dissemination

Ethical Challanges (cont.) Public libraries within a digital culture (information literacy): PL as information centers PL as education centers PL as communication centers

Ethical Challenges (cont.) PL as information centers: –Online catalogs at national and regional levels –Production and access to their own digital documents (special collections) –Digital information services –Development of intranets

Ethical Challenges (cont.) PL as education centers: –Training users in order to get information from the network –Training users in order to use the network for personal communication purposes (personal websites, ) –Training users in order to use the network for social communication purposes (user groups)

Ethical Challenges (cont.) PL as communication centers: –Taking care of users, their information, interests, ideas –Providing individual communication services ( , forum, chat) –Providing social communication services at the local and national level

Conclusion What does ‘digital culture’ mean? Information economy and utilitarian ethics Corporate citizenship Ethics for information professionals Digital libraries: What for? (Alice asks the Cheshire cat...)