New grounds for ontic trust: Information objects and LIS

The information ethics of Luciano Floridi’s well-known Philosophy of Information (PI) project are explored as potential foundations for a deepening sense of stewardship in library and information studies (LIS) practice. The implications of PI’s world view of “information objects” as having intrinsic value and resulting moral rights within the evolving “infosphere” are discussed in the context of current professional standards for collection management and preservation. Richard Fyffe’s recent critical reconstruction of Floridi’s concept of “ontic trust” as it might apply to librarianship as stewardship of the semantic environment is extended to better ground Floridi’s conceptualization of the “infosphere” itself.