Information Practices for Sustainability: Role of iSchools in Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs)

In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed a resolution identifying 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets, and countries around the world agreed to achieve these by 2030. By conducting a thematic analysis of four key UN policy documents related to sustainable development, this paper argues that alongside financial and other resources, access to, and use of, appropriate information are essential for achieving SDGs. The paper also reviews research on information and sustainability undertaken at the iSchools and the computer and human-computer interaction HCI communities. Given that the mission of iSchools is to connect people and society with the required information through the use of appropriate technologies and tools, this paper argues that iSchools can play a key role in helping people, institutions, and businesses, and thus countries around the world achieve SDGs. The paper identifies 4 broad areas of teaching and research that can help iSchools around the world prepare a trained workforce who can manage, and facilitate access to, information in specific domains and contexts. It is also argued that cooperation and collaborations among iSchools can promote a culture of sustainable information practices among university graduates and researchers in different disciplines that will pave the way for achieving SDGs in every sector.