Demonstrate awareness of the ethics, values, and foundational principles of one of the information professions, and discuss the importance of those principles within that profession.
Introduction
Ethical principles are the values that either individual or profession upholds to guarantee moral behavior. Ethical dilemmas occur when balancing competing demands. In the United States, a large majority of librarians also follow the American Library Association Code of Ethics (2021). Many specialties that comprise the field of information science also have their own code of ethics such as the SAA Core Value Statement and Code of Ethics and the Code of Ethics for Health Sciences Librarianship (Society of American Archivists, 2012; Medical Library Association, 2010).
The Code of Ethics of the American Library Association (ALA) is comprised of broad statements. They do not address the particulars of an ethical dilemma, but they do provide guidance on making ethically sound decisions. The ALA directs librarians to provide equitable access to information and library resources, to advocate for the practice of intellectual freedom, to honor the privacy and confidentiality of patrons, and respect the intellectual property rights of content creators. Underscoring the commitment to ethical behavior is the foundational premise that information is powerful. Librarians facilitate access to this information and, in many cases, act as custodians and actively preserve the integrity of special collections of library materials. To uphold the tenets of intellectual freedom these collections should not be altered or destroyed to conceal facts or distort evidence (Society of American Archivists, 2012).
When upholding these principles, librarians should also be aware when ethical dilemmas may also be legal issues. Ethics allow information science professionals to make decisions with confidence and build trust in their surrounding communities. Current events have demonstrated that librarians will face greater opposition in the coming years when trying to uphold principles of tolerance, privacy, and intellectual freedom.
Explication
Equitable Access
One of the foundational principles of librarianship is respect and diversity. This principle is upheld by granting equitable access to all persons. The information science profession has adopted equitable access as one of its core values. In fact, it is the first core value listed in the ALA’s Core Values of Librarianship: “All information resources that are provided directly or indirectly by the library, regardless of technology, format, or methods of delivery, should be readily, equally, and equitably accessible to all library users” (2020).
There are many different types of barriers that bar or discourage access to a library’s resources. controversial views of materials, geographic isolation of rural areas, race and wealth, language barriers, disabilities. For disabilities, American Disabilities Act imposes standards on library facilities so that they are handicap assessable. To overcome some of these barriers to access, libraries provide materials and resources in alternative formats and languages. The challenge is that libraries must consider all of these barriers when making purchases and must make deliberate decisions on what content they chose to fund and in what formats.
Advocacy makes up a significant part of the librarian profession’s activities in upholding the tenets of equitable access. Ongoing advocacy of net neutrality is critical to ensure democratic access to the World Wide Web. Academic libraries advocate for open access to scholarly materials and manage institutional repositories to support this goal.
Intellectual Freedom
One cannot discuss equitable access without discussing intellectual freedom. The American Library Association Code of Ethics calls on librarians “uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources” (American Library Association, 2021). Libraries face the encroachment of censorship from many different avenues. Books and physical materials could be removed from a collection, specific online resources could be targeted, or institutions could have their funding for certain initiatives restricted, but current events have highlighted the attempt of political activists to ban books from school libraries.
In a democracy, it is inevitable that one group’s politics and morality will clash with another group. The act of a group imposing their morality on society inherently restricts the freedom of others outside their group. Conservative media—with the assistance of the social media echo chamber—are responsible for an upswell of challenges to ban books from the nation’s libraries. The justifications for book bans may be various (the presence of racial slurs, glorification of witchcraft, explicit sexual content).
What sets this wave of objections from its predecessors is the citing of Critical Race Theory as justification to ban a manuscript. To be clear, this is a smokescreen—a misnomer—falsely labeling material that describes [or teaches] the historical facts of racism as Critical Race Theory. To be clear, Critical Race Theory draws from the literature, legal documents, and other cultural works as evidence of the collective values and beliefs held in American culture. The large body of material demonstrates how pervasive systemic racism is in the United States (Purdue Online Writing Lab, 2018). For the layperson, Critical Race Theory is a comprehensive, collegiate-level examination of evidence. The fact some of this evidence is used in grade school history does not support the premise that Critical Race Theory is taught in grade school. Regardless of whatever justifications are cited, underneath the smokescreen is a single motive: to impose an ideologically slanted notion of American history and current society.
Cognizant of their actual objective, it comes as no surprise that school libraries have made attractive targets to disgruntled political activists. When political activists target school libraries, they are targeting the liberty of those young persons to read what they choose. The resurgence of book banning in the public education system speaks to a level of bigotry that still exists in the United States.
By and large, objections are brought against publications that feature historically marginalized groups. Heather Fleming the Director of In Purpose Educational Services said, “When the book bans came around, we realized that many of the books that were being banned were by black and brown people, or people from historically excluded groups” (Vidal, 2022). In addition, Grace Hagen the Director of Operations and Inclusion at the Novel Neighbor bookstore of Webster Groves (a suburb of St. Louis) says that books about mental health, sizeism, and strong female characters are also targeted by activists (Vidal, 2022).
A librarian should always be prepared to defend controversial material. In my teen fiction class, I received instruction in a method that some librarians use to help fend off attempts to ban so-called “objectionable” content. This was by preparing challenge defense files.
Censorship is a tool of denial. Library professionals are against censorship. Social media activity has transformed paranoia into panic. The newest trend in book banning is to blame Critical Race Theory when it is merely a smokescreen used to hide the realities of historical racial discrimination and racial discrimination as it exists today. The subjects of book banning and censorship in all of its forms run counter to the profession’s mandate to advocate for the principles of intellectual freedom.
While much attention has been placed on the actions and motivations of political activists, information science professionals also have a duty to uphold the tenets of intellectual freedom. Intellectual freedom is only possible when the population has access to all viewpoints. To facilitate intellectual freedom, libraries must make it a point to have opposing viewpoints represented in their collections as directed by the ALA Library Bill of Rights (2019). This echoes advice from Professor Wayne Disher (my instructor for INFO 266 Collection Management). He advised that when a person working in acquisitions comes across a book that he or she instinctively opposes because of its author, content, or both that said person should acquire it based on that instinct alone.
In the same vein, institutions sometimes house special collections of papers and records of significant evidentiary value. In such circumstances, “Archivists may not willfully alter, manipulate, or destroy data or records to conceal facts or distort evidence” (Society of American Archivists, 2012). Distortion or concealment of historical facts goes against the principles of intellectual freedom.
Privacy and Confidentiality
Libraries seek to preserve the privacy of their clientele. The American Library Association (ALA) has declared that “Protecting user privacy and confidentiality is necessary for intellectual freedom and fundamental to the ethics and practice of librarianship” (2020). Patrons should be free to request sensitive or controversial material without compromising their anonymity. If library employees are not careful, privacy can easily be compromised. For instance, if a frustrated student asks, who has checked out a particular volume, the librarian cannot provide this information (Gilman, 2017, p. 132). Librarians must be vigilant to safeguard the privacy of their patron population.
One best practice is for libraries not to keep that information. At the Fresno County Public Library, the integrated library system does not keep a record of a patron’s checkout history. Sometimes, a patron may express exasperation when the staff is unable to identify a book that they wish to reread, but explaining how this practice preserves their privacy quickly placates their irritation.
Legal implications also come into play when trying to maintain patron privacy. In some states, librarians may be classified as mandated reporters. Such a designation requires them to report instances of child abuse. In California, public library employees are mandated reporters for a limited scope of activity—specifically, child pornography on their public computers (Minow & Hirtle, 2009).
Another consideration to privacy comes with the ability to offer tailored services and reading suggestions. It will be important for libraries to remember their commitment to advocating for privacy when they weigh the privacy of their clientele with the convenience that personally identifiable information can grant in the digital age. Libraries also use data to evaluate performance and create forecasts to better enable to maximize the impact of their available funding. Whenever possible, the data used to evaluate performance should not contain any personally identifiable information. In addition to ensuring that a patron’s library activity remains confidential, library staff also seek to advise the public on the best practice to maintaining privacy in their personal lives. Librarians should be committed to keeping the activities of their clientele confidential so that they will be free to request sensitive or controversial material without judgment.
Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights
The American Library Association Code of Ethics holds that librarians should respect, the author or creator by respecting intellectual property rights (American Library Association, 2021). Copyright protects exact, unique expressions of an idea and grants authors or creators exclusive right to their works. Title 17 of the United States Code governs the copyright of original works of authorship and applies to copying, quoting, and publishing. To be clear, ideas are not protected by copyright law. Instead, such subject matter falls under the domain of patent law. Works of the U.S. government and many works of state governments are free from copyright protection.
When dealing with copyright considerations for their own operations or for their patrons, libraries navigate the fair use exception established in the Copyright Act 1976 I have learned through my course work that the primary considerations for determining fair use are: the nature of the use, the nature of the original work, what percentage of the work was utilized, and how much income was lost by the creator due to its unauthorized use (de Lorenzo, 2020). One way to avoid copyright infringement is to use material with a creative commons license.
Evidence
Evidence 1: Ethical Concerns and Legal Matters of the Child Development Information Community
As evidence of my knowledge and comprehension of the ethical principles of information science for Competency B, I offer the artifact Blog Post#5 (or six—counting an introductory blog post) from my INFO 200 Information Communities class. This document demonstrates familiarity with the foundational ethical values of librarianship and specifically addresses issues of privacy, intellectual property rights, and disclosure of material connections for the child development information community. I draw from my own experience with conducting storytime for the Woodward Park Regional Library and reference the use of a copyrighted song and how its utilization falls within the scope of fair use for copyrighted materials on the basis that my storytime qualifies as nonprofit educational use. For the child development information community, one must weigh the welfare of a child and the privacy of a patron. The patchwork of mandated reporter laws dictates appropriate responses for this ethical dilemma. In the State of California, public library staffers are mandated reporters for a limited scope of activity—specifically, child pornography on their public computers (Minow & Hirtle, 2009).
Evidence 2: Critical Librarianship and Medical Librarianship
As evidence of my insight into how ethics is applied in librarianship, I offer the Essay “Critical Librarianship and Medical Librarianship.” Critical librarianship refers to the applications of social justice with library work. This essay specifically addresses how to practically apply ethical principles in my current position as a library assistant of the Fresno County Public Library (FCPL). It highlights how applications of critical librarianship balance the desire for neutrality and a desire to advocate for social justice. It should be noted that the manner in which I conduct myself with the public has materially changed since I wrote this for my INFO-220 Medical and Health Sciences Librarianship class. The rise of fabrication as a cornerstone of conservative populist discourse has provided an impetus to provide a factual account to counter the spread of misinformation in the public when I would have been less confrontational in the past. In this essay, I also discuss how in medical librarianship is some disagreement on whether medical librarians (when included on a team of healthcare providers) should be involved in the decision-making process.
Evidence 3: Travel Blogging and Ethical and Legal Concerns
As evidence of my understanding of the ethics, values, and foundational principles of the library profession, I offer the blog post “Travel Blogging and Ethical and Legal Concerns,” where I discuss the ethics of disclosing material relationships and family connections when making referrals and the need to scrutinize recommendations. This speaks to my ability to identify potential ethical dilemmas where competing interests come into play. In this blog post, articulate the importance of the disclosure of material family relationships or gifts (even in the form of discounted goods or services). This parallels the ethical principle that librarians should “not advance their private interests at the expense of library users” (American Library Association, 2021). It also highlights a librarian’s principle of providing credible information and how conflicts of interest can signal a lack of credibility for the content in question.
Conclusion
Ethical dilemmas arise when two moral considerations come into conflict. A professional within the fields of information science must uphold the ethical standards articulated by the ALA as well as the standards established by any applicable specialty such as the Code of Ethics for Health Sciences Librarianship (Society of American Archivists, 2012; Medical Library Association, 2010) for medical librarians. As professionals, holders of the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree are expected to balance competing ethical demands.
References
American Library Association. (2006, July 26). Freedom to read. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/freedomreadstatement
American Library Association. (2019, January 29). Library bill of rights. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/
American Library Association. (2020, September 28). Core values of librarianship. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/corevalues
American Library Association. (2021, June 29). Professional ethics. ALA American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/tools/ethics
Beauchamp, Zack (2022, February 10) Why book banning is back: The fight over books in schools is part of a much bigger struggle, revealing where conservatism is today. Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22914767/book-banning-crt-school-boards-republicans
Bellamy-Walker, T. (2022, January 22). Book bans in schools are catching fire. Black Authors say uproar isn’t about students. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/book-bans-schools-are-catching-fire-black-authors-say-uproar-isnt-stud-rcna10228
de Lorenzo, D. (2020) Copyright issues in archives [PowerPoint Slides].
Gilman, Todd. (Ed.). (2017). Academic Librarianship Today. Rowman & Littlefield.
Medical Library Association (2010, June). Code of ethics for health sciences librarianship. https://www.mlanet.org/p/cm/ld/fid=160
Minow, M., & Hirtle, P. (2009, May). Librarians as mandated reporters of child abuse/neglect. LibraryLaw blog. https://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2009/05/librarians-as-mandated-reporters-of-child-abuseneglect.html
Purdue Online Writing Lab (2018) Critical Race Theory (1970s-present). Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/critical_race_theory.html
Society of American Archivists. (2012). SAA core values statement and code of ethics. https://www2.archivists.org/statements/saa-core-values-statement-and-code-of-ethics
Sue, J. (2016, April 3). Travel blogging and ethical and legal concerns. Jasonsuelibrary. https://jasonsuelibrary.wordpress.com/2016/04/03/travel-blogging-and-ethical-and-legal-concerns/
Vidal, Gabriela. (2022, March 1). As Wentzville students sue district over banned books, local bookstores help highlight diverse literature. KMOV4. https://www.kmov.com/2022/03/01/wentzville-students-sue-district-over-banned-books-local-bookstores-help-highlight-diverse-literature/