Ethics for managing chaos: updating the SEDIC Code of ethics for information managers

Abstract

Information management professionals, those who deal with the collection, cataloguing, description, conservation, dissemination, communication and preservation of all types of documentation - whether analogue or digital - introduce the ethical factor into the processes and decisions of their activity as a crucial element in view of the social responsibility they face and the importance of the material they work with: information, the memory of the past and the present, and the consequences of their profession in achieving an informed, better educated and freer society. The Spanish information managers has been striving to convey the moral values that define their activity, and which identify them as such in the eyes of society, through the rigorous drafting of updated and revisable codes of ethics as management and decision-making tools. The article sets out the causes, analysis and methodology that justify the professional principles and values embodied in the updated and new version of the Code of Ethics for Spanish information managers carried out in 2022 by the Spanish Society for Scientific Documentation and Information (SEDIC).