About Infophilia
Infophilia: A Journey into the Human Love of Information
Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, is a weekly letter dedicated to the human love of information. The word "infophilia" comes from the French short form info (for information) and the Greek word philia (for love) capturing the deep, universal connection humans have with knowledge and its transformative potential.
📚Why Information Matters: A New Perspective on Information Literacy
I admire your ability to look beyond the superficial and see the deeper issues that we must address.— William Badke, Associate Librarian at Trinity Western University, and Author of Research Strategies
In today’s fast-paced digital world, navigating the overwhelming flood of information is crucial. That’s where information literacy—which includes AI literacy, media literacy, news literacy—comes in. I’m introducing a fresh, forward-thinking approach to information literacy—an essential skill for the modern age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), disinformation, and rapidly evolving knowledge ecosystems.
As a thought leader in libraries, an open access champion, and information scientist, I delve into human-centered research that bridges technology, culture, and behavior. Infophilia explores the intersection of knowledge cultures, information systems, and human interaction with data, offering practical insights into how information can be used for positive, sustainable outcomes at individual, collective, and global levels.
You’ll gain access to cutting-edge insights on how information—through tools like AI and digital platforms like Substack—shapes our lives, helps us make smarter decisions, and enhances well-being for all. Whether you’re a librarian, business strategist, healthcare professional, engineer or educator, Infophilia provides interdisciplinary perspectives for better living and working in the disinformation age.
🧠A Unique Approach to Information Literacy
In Infophilia, I present a new framework for information literacy that goes beyond the basics of finding and evaluating data. This framework integrates positive psychology with traditional theories of behaviors, systems, and information, addressing challenges like information anxiety, information overload, and disinformation. By adopting this fresh approach, we can make informed decisions, engage in deeper, more meaningful research, protect, and optimize our mental and physical well-being.
Infophilic information styles are my answer to traditional information literacy. Adaptive infophilia—an integrative theory that I’ve developed—is grounded in over half a decade of information literacy and human information behaviors research from Library and Information Science, almost 75 years of positive psychology, in additions to recent findings from fields such as human-computer interaction (HCI), brain and neurosciences, communications and journalism, learning sciences, and even neuroeconomics. Insights from language and literature, philosophy, cultural, studies, and science technology studies are integrated as well. Adaptive infophilia is a personalized, adaptable approach to data, knowledge, and AI across various contexts—whether in professional contexts, everyday life, political news gathering, or academic and scientific research. This spectrum of information engagement strategies is tailored for us for the digital age: we can be healthy infophiles in one context, pragmatic infoseekers in another, and maladaptive infofools and infovores in others. The good news is that we can all learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Infophilia is designed for navigating the hype and the fears of AI in libraries, healthcare, business, and education. Infophilia aims to increase understanding of our knowledge, information, curiosity cultures, and help us adapt our information styles. After the November 2024 presidential elections in the USA, many people wanted to understand the unexpected results and an essay that I’d written in the Spring, Knowledge Resistance: Do some people resist truth and find lies attractive? quickly became my most popular essay!
Infophilia is for You
Infophilia increases understanding of our knowledge, information, curiosity cultures, and empowers individuals and organizations to thrive in increasingly complex information environments and hyper-evolving eco-systems.
🪬 Who am I?
I am a writer, a professor of library and information sciences, and an expert in interdisciplinary education and research across multiple continents. My work explores the relationship between human behaviors and information systems, focusing on the digital, ethical, socio-cultural, and technical dimensions of knowledge organization. This includes transculturation and global anti-racism.
My career has been dedicated to studying how systems, behaviors, and cultures shape our relationship with information. I’m passionate about bridging the gap between technology, society, and knowledge to create responsible and sustainable information ecosystems.
Raised in Madras (now Chennai, India), and currently based in a highly technological and ultra-modern city in coastal Southern California (USA), my writings reflect a diverse global perspective, appreciation of human cultural heritage and history, and a deep understanding of the changing, shifting dynamics of information in our digital world. A lover of words and visuals, I integrate my own photography into each post, videos sometimes, to offer a unique perspective on my themes I explore. Sometimes I even share local news and travel writings like these:
Threads of Knowledge: William T. Young Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington
🫵🏾 Why subscribe to Infophilia?
Infophilia uses a subscription and patronage model—no ads, no sponsors, and no affiliate marketing. Just 100% fact checked, human created, high quality content. As a subscriber, you’ll get access to valuable insights on the future of information literacy, open access, AI, libraries, and more. In addition to my writing, I often draw on my passion for digital photography to explore concepts like biophilia, technophilia, and polymathy, making the letters a more immersive experience.
Subscription Options:
Monthly ($6 per year)
Annual ($60 per year)
Patrons (minimum $200 per year). For those who want to contribute extra support and receive recognition on our Patrons page.
Students get 50% off when they provide an educational email address here.
Benefits:
Paid subscribers and patrons get
Weekly newsletter
A thematic essay and extensive Notes which are sometimes longer than the essay; at least once a month or two there are sections like Library News, Local News, Wealth Watch, Wellness Wisdom, and Your 5-minute AI
Access to the entire archive
Immediate access to an exclusive archive of past essays (86 by end of 2024)
Ability to comment on my weekly writings and engage with a global community of readers and thinkers
A Grand Information Theory for the Modern World
I’m not just redefining information literacy; I’m also creating a grand theory for information, unifying library and information sciences for transformative knowledge access, sharing, and flourishing for all peoples and our planet.
🌍A Short History of Patronage Through the Ages
Intellectual patronage has a long tradition, from the Tamil Sangham of South India to the salons of the European Renaissance.
In south India, an early intellectual tradition existed in the Tamil Sangham, dating to the first few centuries of the Common Era and centered around the ancient city of Madurai. These gatherings of poets and scholars were primarily elite spaces, supported by royal and wealthy patrons, and restricted to educated, high-status individuals. The Thirukkural, a classical Tamil text of profound philosophical insights in couplet-verse form, emerged from this Sangham tradition. I still can recite the first kural in Tamil!
Similarly, the European Renaissance saw the emergence of literary patronage, with wealthy supporters nurturing artists, writers, and intellectuals. These literary salons, much like the Sangham, were exclusive, elite gatherings where influential writers and thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu exchanged ideas – participation limited to those with social connections and intellectual standing.
Lady Mary, an English aristocrat and a pioneering 18th-century writer, exemplified this model. She traveled with her husband's diplomatic mission to Constantinople, documenting her experiences in her famous Turkish Embassy Letters, while also establishing herself as a poet and medical writer. Her patrons enabled her to pursue her independent intellectual endeavors freely.
Today, platforms like Substack facilitate a more democratic patronage model, allowing independent creators to pursue their passion and work. They also enable broader participation in cultural and intellectual discourse – a stark contrast to the exclusive salons of the past. For academics who find themselves outside traditional institutional frameworks, often due to circumstances beyond their control, the new patronage model offers a lifeline. It allows us to continue contributing with passion and purpose to the ever-evolving information ecosystems, in the disciplines and professions for which we trained, building a more inclusive and vibrant intellectual commons, and shaping global digital culture. In the process, access to knowledge and academic institutions including libraries are also being democratized and reshaped.
Your support through the subscription or patronage model helps ensure that the future of information remains free, open, and accessible to all.
Alternative Forms of Scholarly Communication
Like the underground press (Vietnam Era), the Harlem Renaissance, and small press movements, these are pivotal moments for shaping a global knowledge culture—sustainable flourishing for all peoples and our planet. The Substack platform is like an alternative press, but expanded digitally and globally, beyond nation-state borders, disciplines, and other knowledge boundaries, such as gatekeeping.
However, this movement for ad-free information on the web, led by Substack, cannot survive without paid readers. Substack gets paid only when writers are paid (they take 10% of the subscription). Additionally, there are also varying payment processing charges depending on the vendor (Stripe, Apple, etc.)
Without a strong base of paying subscribers, the platform—and this new model of independent, ad-free content—won’t thrive. Infophilia is pleased to be a part of this movement. My essay about the new economy is here: An Introduction to the Creator Economy, a Revolution in Work and Content Creation: Without a Middle Class Will the Revolution Succeed?
ℹ️ Stay Updated and Join the Community
Every new post is delivered straight to your inbox, keeping you up-to-date on the latest developments in libraries, open access, and the information sciences. With Infophilia, you’re part of a global community that is actively shaping the future of information. See these recent essays that do this Shaping Our Future: Resilience, Unity, and Knowledge | Restoring Trust: The Fourth Estate.
Join us 😃
As we navigate the complexities of the digital age, one thing is clear: information is vital for individual and collective well-being. By joining Infophilia, you’re engaging in a journey to better understand the role of information in our world, while contributing to a more sustainable, inclusive global knowledge ecosystem.
Curious about your infophilic information style? Take this 1-question poll to discover your style. Or check out my recent essay, Restoring Trust: The Fourth Estate.
Subscribe now and become part of this exciting intellectual movement!
I admire your ability to look beyond the superficial and see the deeper issues that we must address."— William Badke, Associate Librarian at Trinity Western University, and Author of Research Strategies: Finding Your Way through the Information Fog and other works on Information Literacy. (Read more about his work at WilliamBadke.com and his faculty profile at Trinity Western University).
About the photo
Artist Lorado Taft proposed a Fountain of Creation for Chicago but it was never built. This is one of the four figures, originally planned as part of the Fountain, that are now on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Illinois.
