School of Information Sciences

Black and Knox pen chapters for handbook on information policy

Alistair Black
Alistair Black, Professor Emeritus
Emily Knox
Emily Knox, Interim Dean and Professor

A new book on information policy includes chapters by Professor Emeritus Alistair Black and Associate Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Emily Knox. Research Handbook on Information Policy, edited by Alistair S. Duff, was recently published by Edward Elgar Publishing. The handbook covers topics such as the history and future of information policy, freedom of information and expression, intellectual property, and information inequality.

In his chapter, "Aspects of the History of State Information Policies in Britain Before the Digital Age," Black examines information policies fashioned in Britain over the centuries in areas such as the government, economy, population, public health, military intelligence, and mass media. According to Black, "recognition of a pre-history of information policy supports the argument that the 'information state' has a lineage stretching back at least to the Middle Ages."

Black is the author of The Public Library in Britain 1914-2000 and Libraries of Light: British Public Library Design in the Long 1960s as well as co-author of The Early Information Society. He earned his master's degree in social and economic history from the University of London and his doctorate from London Metropolitan University.

Knox offers a rights-based framework for information policy in her chapter, "Agility in an Age of Information Ubiquity: Freedom of Expression and Information Policy." She discusses how freedom of expression and information policy are closely intertwined and how an "agile theoretical framework" is needed when developing information policy in the age of social media.

Knox's books include Book Banning in 21st Century America; Document Delivery and Interlibrary Loan on a Shoestring; Trigger Warnings: History, Theory, Context; and Foundations of Information Ethics, which she co-edited with John T. F. Burgess. She received her PhD from the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University and her MS from the iSchool at Illinois.

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