Riccardo Ridi

Unified theory of information, hypertextuality and levels of reality

Purpose – The different senses of the term information in physical, biological and social interpretations, and the possibility of connections between them, are addressed. Special attention is paid to Hofkirchners Unified Theory of Information (UTI), proposing an integrated view in which the notion of information gets additional properties as one moves from the physical to the biological and the social realms. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – UTI is compared to other views of information, especially to two theories complementing several ideas of it: the theory of the hypertextual documental universe (“docuverse”) and the theory of integrative levels of reality. Two alternative applications of the complex of these three theories are discussed: a pragmatical, hermeneutic one, and a more ambitious realist, ontological one. The latter can be extended until considering information (“bit”) together with matter-energy (“it”) as a fundamental element in the world. Problems and...

Ethical values for knowledge organization

The comparison between some lists of ethical values prevalent in various professions related to knowledge organization shows that three of these values (intellectual freedom, professionalism and social responsibility) could be the core of a general knowledge organization ethics and that two other values (intellectual property and right to privacy) could be added to them in the future, as they are already among the fundamental values of library profession.

Fare e trasmettere: artigianato digitale in biblioteca

Obituary of Francesco Dell’Orso (1953-2015), librarian at the University of Perugia, where he began and co-ordinated library automation, and author of many papers, reviews and manuals, mainly about cataloguing and bibliography formatting softwares.

Un mosaico complesso: le biblioteche italiane

Italian libraries are highly fragmented at the institutional level, creating the potential for disorientation amongst users. This problem can be remedied by interlibrary co-operation and the «system» or «network» concept of libraries. The principal types of Italian libraries are reviewed (particularly state, university, public, school, and institutional libraries).