ABSTRACT
Access to information can be conceptualized in many ways; different academic disciplines have approached it in terms of knowledge, technology, communication, control, commodities, and participation, with infl uences on access including physical, cognitive, affective, economic, social, and political issues. LIS scholars have tended, however, to approach information access in two specifi c ways: as a matter of physical access, emphasizing the format and location of documents, and the degree to which users can physically acquire and use those documents; and as a matter of intellectual access, emphasizing users’ cognitive abilities as well as mechanisms and structures for organizing and categorizing information. This chapter examines the roots of these conceptualizations, discusses systems such as libraries that are in place to ensure that access to information is possible, and explores the contexts that make information access so important in society.
