This book critically examines the organization of knowledge as it is involved in matters of digital communication, the social, cultural and political consequences of classifying, and how particular historical contexts shape ideas of information and what information to classify and record. Due to permeation of digital infrastructures, software, and digital media in everyday life, many aspects of contemporary culture and society are infused with the activity and practice of classification. That means that old questions about classification have their potency in modern discourses about surveillance, identify formation, big data and so on. At the same time, this situation also implies a need to reconsider these old questions and how to frame them in digital culture. This book contains contributions that consider classic library classification practices and how their choices have social, cultural and political effect, how the organization of knowledge is not only a professional practice but is also a way of communicating and understanding digital culture, and how what a particular historical context perceives as information has implications for the recording of that information.

"Studies in Information" publishes monographs on critical issues in the information society. The book series is concerned with all aspects of information; its nature, politics, institutions, usages, and technologies, and it presents research from a wide range of disciplinary traditions. Previously published as Library and Information Science, it is a fully peer-reviewed and high impact outlet for research in the field of information. This new volume, edited by Jack Andersen, is the first to be published under the new series name Studies in Information. The book highlights the important role genre theory plays within information studies. It illustrates how modern genre studies inform and enrich the study of information, and conversely how the study of information makes its own independent contributions to the study of genre. Various original contributions scrutinize core aspects of information and knowledge organization, such as information systems and distributed authorship; personal information management; and records management in organizations, all through the lens of genre.