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.
Libraries in the United States have long promoted and defended democracy, civil rights and civic engagement. In a field profoundly shaped by rapid technological change, diversifying patron communities, and ever-expanding services and resources, professional codes of ethics offer a critical anchor for librarians. The patron rights and institutional ethics at the core of librarianship include intellectual freedom, privacy and confidentiality, equity of access to resources, peaceful assembly and respect for intellectual property, among others. Many of these are rooted in the U.S. Constitution and some date back to the 19th century. These concepts and commitments profoundly inform the mission, vision and values statements crafted by different information organizations. In turn, many important library policies, practices and services stem from and are shaped by these principles. The influence that these ethical codes exert is not merely felt through top-down administrative directives; they also guide daily relationships, interactions with colleagues and patrons, decision making and problem-solving through shared aspirational values. Consistent mindfulness and dedication to ongoing learning in these areas is essential to ensuring lively dialogue and the practical fulfillment of these ideals. More specifically to the library context, intellectual freedom and other ethical principles apply at both policy and more informal levels to a wide array of vital activities like collection development, needs assessments, reference services, handling reconsideration, challenges and other patron requests, program development, community outreach and more. It’s not a stretch to say that without a code of ethics that privileges patrons’ rights and protections, contemporary libraries can’t realize their potential benefits for society or even carry out many of their basic functions.
The American Library Association (ALA) publishes essential information about the values and ethical codes relevant to librarians and information professionals. They’ve also made significant contributions to the field by codifying and expanding on these ethics in the Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement. The ALA also provides organizations with resources and support in dealing with situations related to these central tenents. While intellectual freedom and other principles will be adapted in different ways to respond to different issues in, for example, an academic institution context than they will be in a public library or special medical library setting, the ALA suggests that all information organizations have common values and responsibilities. We are all tasked with safeguarding access to and use of our collections – including digital and loaned materials – for our patrons. James LaRue speaks to the existential nature of intellectual freedom in libraries: “Going forward, information professionals must assert a proposition of value – and intellectual freedom is at the core of it” (2018). In public schools this is typically manifest in resisting censorship (external or internal) while at academic and business libraries the emphasis is more often on privacy.
The ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom states that intellectual freedom provides all information users “the right to seek and receive information on all subjects from all points of view without having the subject of one’s interest examined or scrutinized by others” (2015). The ALA makes the case that librarianship is always inextricably bound up with the freedom to read and express “the widest diversity of views and expressions” (2014) by virtue of our role as stewards of information. We must promote intellectual freedom and other patron rights because of our position as provisioners of information and other resources: “[librarians] significantly influence or control the selection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information…We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations” (2017). Even the process of collection management itself must be free of self-censorship and grounded in awareness that the collections we invest so much time in, following ethics of intellectual freedom and diversity, actually belong to our patrons, not ourselves. For these and other reasons, it is always worth rereading the ALA’s professional code of ethics, the Library Bill of Rights and Freedom to Read documents but I will only quote the code of ethics in full:
- We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests.
- We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.
- We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.
- We respect intellectual property rights and advocate balance between the interests of information users and rights holders.
- We treat co-workers and other colleagues with respect, fairness, and good faith, and advocate conditions of employment that safeguard the rights and welfare of all employees of our institutions.
- We do not advance private interests at the expense of library users, colleagues, or our employing institutions.
- We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.
- We strive for excellence in the profession by maintaining and enhancing our own knowledge and skills, by encouraging the professional development of co-workers, and by fostering the aspirations of potential members of the profession.
It’s also worth noting that not all of these professional ethics are based on affirmations of civil and author / publisher rights. Items five and nine, and to a lesser extent six, speak instead to the workplace and relationships among colleagues. These inclusions expand the scope and relevance of the document and provide a concise roadmap for continuous improvement in terms of both employee welfare and skills and knowledge development. They contribute to the health of libraries broadly and by extension enhance their value to end users.
Despite the sturdy foundation laid down by the ALA’s code of ethics, and the collective experience of countless librarians in applying them to real world situations, problems with difficult tradeoffs and no obvious resolution do still present themselves. In these cases, more deliberative consensus building with stakeholders that understand professional ethical principles within their institutional context – as well as with input from the communities the institution serves – may be necessary. The ALA helpfully maintains an extensive cache of pages on “Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights” that prompt reflection, suggest solutions or point to sources for further guidance.
A group project for INFO 266 (Collection Management) involved imagining a fictional library and writing a Policy Manual for it which would articulate collection development policies and their underlying values. Our team envisioned an interactive art library in Southern California built to offset the loss of most of the major art museums in Los Angeles area during a massive earthquake in 2041. We discovered that Wayne Disher’s definition of collection management as a “strategic planning process that attends to external trends such as reader preferences and demands, emerging technologies, and challenges such as limited resources for collections purchases” (2018) accurately described and at times guided our experience. Knowing that a function of art throughout history has been to break with norms, we embraced the possibility that some of the art and related work we planned on making available to the public would stir up controversy as a virtue. In fact we believed that if there was no controversy then we were probably doing something wrong. We drafted collection and selection policies that mandated including material that was contentious, that came from marginalized and underrepresented groups and from small and independent publishers and content providers. We also stressed the importance of collecting multiple formats and media (several of which were entirely made up to fit the future time period, like interactive books with holograms and VR enabled experiences), both to meet public expectations, to provide access to differently abled patrons, and to stay abreast of technological innovations.
These policies connect with the ethical principles and patron rights delineated by the ALA and others. The ALA published a document called “Diverse Collections: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights” which establishes a deep link between collections management and Article 1 of the Library Bill of Rights: “Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation” (2019). We dedicated an entire chapter to Intellectual Freedom. In addition to collection management policies, our fictional library offered many programs that aimed to widen public access and interest, increase participatory events and services, and generally democratize and promote the value of the institution to its varied communities. These latter were less direct expressions of the ethical principle of freedom of access.
Many of the chapters in the Policy Manual were divvied up amongst the four members of the team while others were written collectively. The entire Policy Manual was edited by the group after two rounds of drafts. I wrote chapter 1, which is unrelated to ethics, and chapter 11, which tackles intellectual freedom and censorship. In chapter 2 we address issues of collection policy and ethics by articulating the goals of the former:
- To ensure a balanced collection that promotes lifelong learning
- No censorship of controversial material
- Include content from marginalized and lesser-known communities / sources
- Include media / formats for users with disabilities
- Support for multiple languages
In chapter 3 we expand on the importance of “ease of access, and relevancy to patrons.” In chapter 11 we delve further into policies impacted by intellectual freedom and censorship. We explain that our selectors purchase works by and about artists regardless of whether their work is controversial. Noting the fact that many artists strive to force divisive issues to the surface, to test political, psychological, and aesthetic limits, and to use confrontation to transform opinion, we argue that these – and even those that shock without any obvious intention to bring about a social good – are First Amendment issues, and that “these ideas must be protected from those who would censor them.” In addition to selecting materials with the Library Bill of Rights protections against censorship in mind (Article 1, quoted above), Article 5 offers an equally important benchmark: “A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background or views” (2006). Our commitment to avoiding censorship (Article 3) is also expressed in our regular dismissal of reconsideration requests and challenges. We do allow for for consideration and make ourselves available for dialogue, but withdrawing a title because it rankles a patron’s sensibilities or beliefs is not in our policy manual DNA. A consequential corollary was identified: self-censorship. This may present an even greater risk to our goals to fulfill intellectual freedom and related values. This form of censorship is much harder to detect and avoid, particularly when the collection budget nears depletion and tough choices about how to spend its remainder must be made.
This policy manual project was both creative and fun, and the hands-on aspect brought the course material alive in a way that was perhaps more edifying and holistic than more orthodox approaches.
References
Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights. (n.d.). In American Library Association. Retreived March 02, 2021 from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations
Library Bill of Rights. (2019). In American Library Association. Retrieved March 02, 2021 from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill
Professional Ethics. (2019). In American Library Association. Retrieved March 02, 2021 fromhttp://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations
The Freedom to Read Statement. (2004). In American Library Association. Retrieved March 02, 2021 from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/freedomreadstatement
LaRue, J. (2018). Intellectual Freedom. In S. Hirsch (Ed.), Information Services Today. (p 444). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
EVIDENCE for Competency A
This group project was created for INFO 266: COLLECTION MANAGEMENT.
This large scale group project for INFO 266 on Collection Management covered a lot of territory, including elements germane to this competency. The assignment was to imagine a fictional library and write a Policy Manual for it that would elaborate on its collection development and selection policies. We used brainstorming sessions to produce an outline for the document, and then assigned chapters to each of the four team members. We also edited each chapter together after the first round of writing. I wrote chapters 1 and 11. In the latter I explored how collection policies were impacted by intellectual freedom and an anti-censorship stance. Using several influential documents from the ALA – among them the Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read Statement, Professional Ethics, and the Intellectual Freedom Manual – we attempted to integrate core principles of librarianship in our futuristic and at times whimsical library devoted to the visual arts.