Cultures of Information Policy and Practice: The Ethnoinformatic Research Potential of America's Utopian Experiments.

by Bourne, Brandy L.

The presumption of this research is that information organization and policy is not only

utilitarian but is also in service of particular goals and worldviews. Just as the ways in

which societies organize themselves into buildings, communities and towns reflect their

particular needs and values, so too does their organization of records and texts, their

selective provision of information resources, and their choices of what to preserve, how,

and for how long.

America’s rich history of experimental, microcosmic utopian communities provides a

unique opportunity to examine the role of information in their attempts at social

reorganization. Short vignettes of the cultural histories of information in New Harmony,

Icaria, Brook Farm, Ruskin, Shaker, Harmony, Rugby, and Moravian communities are

examined to offer some insight into the ethnographic research potential of information in

America’s utopian societies.