Dr Martha Smith asks:
Let's include a follow-up discussion of the code enforcement and updating issues that you all have been discussing in your blog rings. You all have made some very good points on the need for updating and the problems with the lack of enforcement provisions or any "teeth" in the professional associations. What I'd like you to consider is how else to deal with updating our public face in between code revisions and the lack of enforcement provisions. How do we keep our values before the public and ourselves? How do we respond quickly to our quickly changing environment and to the way we govern ourselves?


I have spent some time this week pondering whether I would like the ALA code to have teeth. It's a very broadly sketched code, with no enforcement guidelines. I've come to the conclusion I like it that way, but that means I feel a great need to address two of Dr Smith's questions:

How do we keep our values before the public and ourselves?

I speak strictly for myself, from within my own context. I work at a small (but mighty!) community public library. I strongly feel that the best way to keep our library's values before the public is to provide the best possible service, and quick responses to complaints and questions, to our patrons. Frankly, I do not concern myself with representing the entire profession of librarianship to the entire world.

If I worked for ALA, how might I feel?

I suppose I have become cynical over the years. When large organizations make sweeping statements at me, I tend to smile politely and ignore them. The most effective way an organization can present its professionals to me as a consumer or client is to:

> actively help prepare its professionals by providing good tools and training for them (for ALA , by presenting continuing education programs and the like)

> make sure only well-qualified people are included in their professional membership (for ALA, by accrediting MLS/MLIS programs)

> make sure people who have behaved in an unethical or illegal manner are excluded from professional membership (I would support a statement that anyone who violates the ALA code of ethics would be barred from membership; I have not seen such a statement)

In the end, though, what will always matter to me most is my personal interactions with members of the profession. Good preparation and continuing training of members is the single best way to keep our values before the public.

Certainly, there's always a place for public statements and legislative lobbying (I'm on my district's advocacy committee). For me, though, those efforts are secondary to preparing individuals to do an excellent and ethical job, modeling the organization's values.

How do we respond quickly to our quickly changing environment and to the way we govern ourselves?

This is the area in which I most admire ALA's approach, with a broad, unchanging code of ethics supported by specific policy statements. The code sketches the broadest strokes, and will seldom, if ever, require change. Policy statements, though, can be issued quickly to be responsive to changing times, and to interpret the organization's application of broad principles to a specific current situation.

In some respects, this is like the United States' Constitution (a broad statement of rights and responsibilities, seldom changed) and laws (a tangled mess, but one which can respond to changing situations).

Governance - the question of who sets the values and policies and then applies them - now that is another question. I am very much of the minority who believe in government by consensus. I know it's a long, slow, messy process, but I believe its values generally outweigh its costs, unless an instant answer is absolutely required. But that makes me the minority in a majority-rules world!

Preface

The public policy issue I choose to address for this assignment comes from my pathfinder in Journalism and Media Information Ethics. In recent years in the United States there has been a worrying trend toward mergers of journalistic media sources. Smaller companies have been gobbled by increasingly larger ones, meaning that there are, in fact, fewer sources of information available. Where we see many newspapers or news stations, we may believe we are seeing many sources. In fact, most of these sources may be controlled by a handful of parent companies.

The dangers of this include:
• It is easier for a small number of people to control the flow of information.
• It is easier for a small number of people to manipulate, or “spin” information.
• Citizens in a democracy rely on accurate information to make decisions which affect their voting, which in turn affects the leadership of the country, which in turn affects national and international policy. Manipulating the public is, in essence, manipulating national and international policy. If there are many sources of independent information, the public has a good chance to evaluate the sources and obtain good information. In the absence of independent sources, the public has a good chance of being manipulated and misled.

Part 1: Overview of Ethical Themes and The Role of the Professional

Elrod and Smith outline five important ethical themes: community, ownership, access, privacy, and security.
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For this assignment, we were asked to examine a professional code of ethics and reflect on several questions. (As with all long entries, only a portion of this article will appear on this page. To read the rest, please click the Read More link.)

I have chosen the ALA Code of Ethics as the focus for this entry.

1. Does the code reflect a foundation in utilitarianism or deontology? Other ethical traditions? Describe.

The ALA code is plainly based in Kantian deontology, stressing duties and rights, in this case the duties of the librarian and the rights of library users. Let’s examine the first principle “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.” The statement of this principle implies the rights of users to equitable treatment, and the duty of the library to provide this treatment.

A utilitarian, or consequentialist, code would emphasize needs or societal goals above duties and rights. A code of this sort might state the ALA first principle with a shifted emphasis. For example, it might read “In order to provide the best information to the greatest number of users, we provide appropriate and usefully organized resources; optimal service policies; maximized access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests.” In a more extreme example, a utilitarian code might openly express a principle of unequal access, such as providing expedited access to a particular societal group in order to meet a perceived need.

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The third blog topic for INFO679 involves application of the Potter Box, a model developed by Ralph Potter to aid in ethical decision making. Students in the class were asked to choose one of four situations, and use the Potter Box to reach a decision on how to act ethically. The option I chose was this:

"You are working doing website development for a non-profit organization that has patrons/users from several different language groups, English and two others. Describe how you would decide how to deal with providing access to all of the users and how you would convince your supervisors and others that the expenditure for your time and expertise is worthwhile."

(As with all long entries, only a portion of this article will appear on this page. To read the rest, please click the Read More link.) [Read More!]

(As with all long entries, only a portion of this article will appear on this page. To read the rest, please click the Read More link.)

When I was six, in 1964, two major advances in my personal communications technology changed my life forever. Of course, at six one’s life is changing forever just about every day, but these two had a lasting effect. First, I was allowed to use the telephone. I memorized my best friend’s phone number (which I still recall, though I have been known to stumble over my own current cell number). We could talk after school, and on weekends, and no one else would know what we said. That same year, at Christmas, I received a small typewriter. The joy of using this wondrous new thing, with its bells and clacks and clangs, was so great that I began to write to everyone I knew, even people I saw frequently, for the sheer joy of the clicking keys.

My friend’s phone number, with its alphabetic exchange, is useless now, and the rotary dial we used has gone along with the typewriter. The pleasure of communicating has remained, while the mechanisms that enable it have changed dramatically. That pleasure is a large part of what draws me to be a librarian, bringing information and people together. The choice of librarianship also reflects my commitment to individual empowerment through freedom of access, learning, and exposure to a variety of ideas, philosophies, and cultures.

Considering changes in information and communication technology together with questions of moral values always brings me to reflect on my experience as an adherent of a minority spirituality which frequently faces discrimination.
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Readers of my regular blog may detect some similarities between this post, written January 16, 2006, on an assigned topic for INFO679, and a January 10 entry on the main library blog. That was the popular, chatty comment; this, the more academic approach. (As with all long entries, only a portion of this article will appear on this page. To read the rest, please click the Read More link.)

As I read the news this week I was unsure which bothered me more, that James Frey had gilded the lily (or perhaps rusted the junk metal) in his “memoir” A Million Little Pieces, or that Oprah Winfrey and Nan Talese decided to stand by the book, saying, in essence, that it doesn’t matter whether or not books marketed as non-fiction are truthful. When is truth fiction? Does it matter?

In their ESTE article on Information Ethics, Elrod and Smith identify five core themes: community, ownership, access, privacy, and security. Access to truth is often denied in the interests of promoting security or privacy. This is a classic tension, presenting an interesting challenge in balance of values.

In this short entry, I would like to broaden the theme of access, while discussing some general trends in information ethics. Denial of access can take several forms: outright absence of information, presentation of biased information, and presentation of false information. Outright absence is the most straightforward and obvious. When the censors took their scissors to the letters of servicemen during World War II, it was clear that information was missing.

Presentation of biased or false information, however, is more insidious. When information outlets, such as large media conglomerates, merge, as is now common, we see as great a volume of information coming from fewer sources, and biases are harder to detect. When elected officials decide misinformation is necessary to national security, we do not know we are hearing misrepresentations. When one false source hits the Internet, and is swiftly copied hundreds of times to other sites, it is harder to know that it is inaccurate. Inaccuracy and bias may be deliberate or accidental. In either case, they threaten the flow of information and block access.
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Welcome to a special blog on issues in Information Ethics.

In addition to being New Hope-Solebury's librarian, I am also a graduate student in Library and Information Science at Drexel University. During the Winter Quarter, 2005-2006, I've enrolled in a course in Information Ethics, a subject that has fascinated and concerned me greatly for years. This blog fulfills a requirement for that course, and allows me a place to reflect on various issues in Information Ethics, with a particular focus on Ethics in Journalism and Media.

Comments are enabled on the blog, so please feel free to click on the comments line beneath each post to add your impressions and ideas. Comments may be edited to ensure they are on topic and appropriate for the library's website. It's only ethical. COMMENTS HAVE NOW BEEN DISABLED, DUE TO EXCESSIVE SPAMMING.

HOW TO USE THIS PAGE (skip if you're already blog-friendly):

This page, like the Library's main News page, is organized as a weblog, or blog, for short (because on the Internet, we always seem to be in too much of a hurry for two syllables). Each new post pushes the older posts further down the page. Eventually the older posts fall off the page entirely, and land in the Archives.

To get around, you can:

> Scroll down the page, reading items as you choose

> Look at the Topics for This Page links on the right and select the one that interests you (this will show only items in that topic; to return to the complete page, click All under Topics for This Page on the right)

This page will always have about 15 items on it. If you leave it in its natural state, you'll see the latest 15. If you select a Topic, you'll see the latest 15 for that Topic.

Look at the tiny line at the end of this posting. You'll see a note about the number of comments received. If you want to leave a comment, or if you want to see what comments others have left, just click on the word "comments" below. The comments appear on a separate page. We look forward to hearing from you. Relevant comments, even if they are critical, are welcome. Irrelevant or inappropriate comments may be deleted by the editor (especially if she is feeling drunk with power, or has not yet had her morning cup of tea).