Dear Colleagues,

This special issue is based on the theme of Asia-Pacific iConference (AP-iConference) 2025: Ethics, Technology, and Trust: Responsible Innovations in Records, Archives, and Information Management. AP-iConference is an annual event that brings together researchers in the information field across the Asia-Pacific region, serving as a regional satellite of the global iSchools iConference. The special issue proponents are the AP-iConference Program Committee Chairs (Buenrostro-Cabbab and Liu), and Program Committee Member (Wang). Authors of top conference papers will be invited to submit to the special issue. The special issue is likewise open to other submissions from authors who did not participate in the AP-iConference. We invite interdisciplinary and critical engagements within and outside the Asia-Pacific region that examine how knowledge organization and archival management practices and concepts are being reformed in response to the existing socio-technical dynamics and ethical issues in the field.

This special issue aims to explore how the evolving digital technologies and ethical frameworks redefine trustworthy records and knowledge sources, memory work, and authority in knowledge organization and archival management. The adoption of technologies alongside the shifting nature, generation and uses of knowledge, and evolving process of meaning-making in the archives present complex ethical dilemmas in the ways we perform our professional responsibilities. This situation disrupts our long-standing assumptions and practices relating to organization, classification, and preservation, as well as the relevant models and frameworks that guide our notions of authenticity, reliability, transparency, and accountability. Hence, a more reflective stance in doing our institutional and community obligations is therefore needed.

The key questions for this special issue are the following:

• How do frameworks, models and practices in knowledge organization and archival management cultivate or erode trust in the digital environment?
• What are the ethical implications of the use of technologies in knowledge organization and archival functions and processes?
• How do institutional and state-imposed mechanisms and policies affect the perceptions and practices of librarians, metadata specialists, archivists and records professionals, and users in creating, managing and using digital knowledge and archives?
• What roles do librarians, archivists, and information scientists in advocating for responsible organization and recordkeeping in the midst of political, social, and technological pressures?

This proposed special issue seeks to understand how practitioners, educators, scholars, and communities take the helm and uphold public trust, promote inclusivity, ensure ethical understanding and management, and protect the integrity of various knowledge sources, records, and archives. We invite contributions from diverse fields such as library and information science, archival studies, records management, critical data studies, STS (science and technology studies), memory studies, and digital humanities that discuss the developments, and issues and challenges surrounding the following:

• Knowledge organization systems
• Classification theories and models
• Semantic web, linked data, and knowledge graphs
• Trust frameworks for knowledge and archival systems in the AI environment
• Privacy, security, and access to knowledge and archives
• Open data, access, transparency, and public accountability
• Labor, precarity, and professional ethics in knowledge organization and archival work
• Representation, inclusivity, and reparative archival organization and description
• Participatory and community-driven classification and access models

Dr. Iyra S. Buenrostro - Cabbab, Dr. Yuenan Liu and Dr. Di Wang
Guest Editors