Articulate the ethics, values, and foundational principles of library and information professionals and their role in the promotion of intellectual freedom.
Introduction
As information professionals, it is our values and ethics that set us apart from those in similar lines of work and even from those who work alongside us. I worked as a bookseller for many years and while I feel confident that I could recommend a book for someone who wanted to read some good historical fiction, I know that during those days I would not have been able to give a customer everything they needed to write a college level research paper. The differences between a bookseller and a librarian might be negligible to some, but they are the foundation of our profession and without them libraries become nothing more than bookstores where everything is free. There are many professional organizations in the information sciences, all with their own sets of core values, but I believe these can be distilled down to a few major components: service, respect, access, and intellectual freedom.
Evidence
Should there be privilege in the relationship between reference librarian and patron?
My first piece of evidence is a brief essay I wrote in response to the above question. The idea of privileged communication in a relationship between a professional and someone who seeks their advice comes from the service professions: doctors, lawyers, and the clergy invoke this privilege as a result of dealing with issues of profound importance with those who use their services. As information professionals, we might handle a number of information requests each day, some that are of profound importance and some that are not. In my discussion I take the position that it is not up to us to decide whether or not an issue is of profound importance to a patron, and that we should treat each transaction with the same level of professionalism and decorum.
In preparation for this essay, I learned about the story of Kathleen Hensman, a librarian who broke a law guaranteeing patron confidentiality when she called the police to report that some of the men who were suspected perpetrators in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon had been library patrons and had used the computers there. This is an ethical dilemma that I believe we still face today, and one that is often brought up in scaremongering discussions of how our freedoms are being violated.
My second piece of evidence is a series of three questions meant to encourage critical thinking and analysis of the Society of American Archivists’ Code of Ethics. Each question reflects some type of conflict and I answered each by referring to the code and interpreting it to come to a reasonable answer.
This exercise introduced me to the code of ethics for archivists and showed me how an archivist might apply it in his or her everyday work. It drove home the point that these codes are not hard and fast rules, but guidelines and good judgment should always be applied in each situation.
Both of these projects exposed me to service, respect, access, and intellectual freedom from the point of view of an information professional rather than someone whose job is to sell as many books as possible. This change in perspective was a process that took a couple of years, but has absolutely changed the way I view connecting people with information.
Professional Development
Many people see librarians as the gatekeepers to information, but to me that view is incorrect. Gatekeepers are there to keep people out, or to only let a select few in. I truly believe that there are no VIPs in the library, and it is our job to welcome everybody with the same warmth and enthusiasm whether they are there to work on a doctoral dissertation or just need to take advantage of the available internet access. As I work in the profession, I plan to remain an active member in organizations related to my area of focus, such as the Special Libraries Association, the Visual Resources Association and the Art Libraries Society of North America.
By participating in the activities of these groups, I will be able to remain current on issues of values and ethics in my field both in theory and in practice.