Reference Ethics in the Twenty-First Century
Zara Wilkinson and Vibiana Bowman Cvetkovic
In the seminal work Our Enduring Values, Michael Gorman (2000) outlined eight “central values” of librarianship: stewardship, service, intellectual freedom, rationalism (organizing principles for materials, procedures, and programs), literacy and learning, equity of access to recorded knowledge and information, privacy, and democracy (26–27). His formulation, which expressed his own vision of librarianship, was founded on the values and ethics scholarship of eminent librarians S. R. Ranganathan, Jesse Shera, Samuel Rothstein, and Lee Finks (18). In his discussion of Finks’s Taxonomy of Values, Gorman wrote that positive values of librarianship such as idealism and optimism are threatened by rival values such as “bureaucracy, anti-intellectualism, and nihilism” (26). Gorman also detailed the toll that these negative values take on the profession. He noted that bureaucratic mind-sets are endemic because of the nature of the profession, which embraces a “desire for order and regular procedure.” The other two rival values are arguably more worrisome:
There is an anti-intellectual tone to much of the discourse about technology that can be found in statements that equate the Internet and a research library or Web surfing and serious reading. . . . Nihilism is the philosophy of the despairing, and a librarian who loses faith in the future of libraries or the value of librarianship is succumbing to that despair. (26)
The negative influences of bureaucracies, anti-intellectualism, and nihilism described by Gorman resonate with new meaning more than ten years after his book first appeared. Will they continue to resonate into the near future?
This chapter examines the professional ethics and values that shape reference librarianship in the twenty-first century. The authors will attempt to answer three questions: What are the extant frameworks that inform ethical reference librarianship? What are some of the most important ethical issues facing librarians today? Finally, are the current guidelines flexible enough to accommodate the future of reference work in a post-9/11, increasingly technological, and perhaps postliterate culture? The discussion begins with a look at current ethical standards regarding reference librarianship and an examination of how they reflect the values of the profession.
The Frameworks
Many professional library associations in the United States make public their code of ethics or a list of ethical principles. The Special Libraries Association (SLA), the Medical Library Association (MLA), and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), for example, each has a code of ethics that is tailored to the unique responsibilities of its organizational members. The “gold standard” for ethical codes in librarianship, however, is the “Code of Ethics of the American Library Association” (ALA 2008; hereinafter Code). The ALA is the main organizing force within the profession; as an entity it encompasses all aspects of librarianship. For that reason, the ALA’s Code will be the primary document discussed in this section.
At the outset it should be noted that the premier organization devoted specifically to reference librarianship is the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association. RUSA, as a professional body, has developed a series of guidelines to inform the practice of librarians who provide reference and research services to users in all types of libraries. These guidelines address topics as varied as the behavioral performance of reference service providers, the implementation of virtual reference services, and responses to questions in the fields of medicine, law, and business. The RUSA (2000) “Guidelines for Information Services” outlines a series of service goals for reference and information service providers. These service goals are divided into the following topics: services, resources, access, personnel, evaluation, and ethics. In regard to ethics, however, RUSA defers to the ALA and asserts that the Code “governs the conduct of all staff members providing information service.”
The Code lays out the core values of the organization and “embodies the ethical responsibilities of the profession in this changing information environment.” Revised in 2008, it is made up of eight broad principles:
I. 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.
II. We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.
III. 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.
IV. We respect intellectual property rights and advocate balance between the interests of information users and rights holders.
V. 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.
VI. We do not advance private interests at the expense of library users, colleagues, or our employing institutions.
VII. 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.
VIII. 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.
The first four principles address issues of access and the rights of individuals. These include providing the highest level of service and equitable access, upholding the principles of intellectual freedom, guaranteeing users’ rights to privacy, and balancing the needs of users of information with those of intellectual property rights holders. The second group of four principles addresses ethical workplace behavior for librarians. These include advocating for safe and respectful employment conditions, not advancing private interests at the expense of library users, maintaining a balance between personal convictions and professional duties, and always striving for excellence in the profession of librarianship.
The Code successfully lays out the basic tenets of ethical librarianship in the United States. However, applying the Code to practice can be complicated since it is intended to provide guidance to information professionals by articulating a shared set of beliefs rather than to dictate behavior. Problems can arise when specific situations require librarians to navigate conflicting convictions, loyalties, and values. As stated in the Code documentation, “Ethical dilemmas occur when values are in conflict.” For example, a librarian who is asked to help a patron download copyrighted media will find himself or herself in an ethical dilemma; providing the patron with an “accurate, unbiased, and courteous” answer may conflict with attempts to protect intellectual property rights. In another instance, a patron who uses the library’s “equitable access” and anticensorship policies to view pornographic material on library computers may subject library employees to materials they find offensive, thus creating a hostile work environment. The patron’s use of library terminals would therefore conflict with ALA’s stated intent to “advocate conditions of employment that safeguard the rights and welfare of all employees of our institutions.”
The Code may also conflict with a librarian’s personal beliefs or with federal, state, or local laws. As in the earlier example, a librarian who does not wish to facilitate copyright infringement might be uncomfortable allowing computer access to a patron who has expressed the intention to illegally download copyrighted material. Similarly, a librarian who intends to “protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality” would struggle with a law enforcement officer’s request for personal information about a patron. In “Ethics and the Reference Librarian,” Charles Bunge (1999) singles out ethical norms based on personal religious and political beliefs as the most likely to influence librarians’ professional practices:
Purely personal ethical norms, such as those based on religious or political beliefs . . . cannot restrict professional obligations in the librarian’s practice. Conflicts between obligations to the reference client and personal religious beliefs (e.g., aversion to certain religious practices or birth control methods) must be resolved in favor of the obligation to assist the client diligently and with independence of judgment. (37–38)
Here Bunge evokes the Code’s seventh principle, which decrees that librarians must “distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and [can] 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.” When providing reference and information services, librarians strive to be impartial and professional, leaving their opinions and values in the realm of the personal.
The interlocking themes of neutrality, equality, and freedom from censorship are threaded throughout the Code. Contemporary librarians must balance these professional obligations with their personal, political, religious, and ethical beliefs in a landscape that has become progressively more diverse and complex. The next section explores that landscape and some of the professional challenges that librarians may face.
Reference Librarianship in the New Millennium: New Problems and New Challenges
In an increasingly technological world, librarians struggle to define the ethics of service and access. This section considers some of the most important issues faced by contemporary reference librarians as they work to serve their publics and constituencies. The issues to be examined are grouped into the following broad categories: access, privacy, and intellectual freedom.
Access
For a variety of reasons—budgets and changing technologies, to name a couple—the online delivery of library services has become both prevalent and important. Databases and catalogs are online, and reference is delivered via “new” platforms and formats, including chat, e-mail, video chat, and social media. The increased usage of online information services raises a number of issues, and one of the most important is the question of accessibility. The Code specifically states that librarians will provide “equitable access” for all requests for information. A key question for virtual library services is how to make the research experience equitable for every user with regard to instruction, reference exchanges, and access to scholarly literature (monographs, reference materials, and journals). In this discussion, the term “accessibility” will be used in the broadest sense of the word. Barriers to resources are encountered not only by those patrons with physical or mental disabilities but also by patrons subject to socioeconomic factors such as limited access to technology or limited computer or language skills. Access—the ability to engage fully in civic life without barriers—is a civil right protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Indeed, as is particularly pertinent to this discussion, access to educational opportunities is protected by this act and by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
In higher education, the question of equitable access has become a high-profile issue. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the makeup of a “typical” undergraduate class has changed dramatically. Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are returning and enrolling in online and traditional programs; this group includes wounded vets, many in need of special accommodations (Freking 2013). Precise statistics on veterans with disabilities currently enrolled in post–secondary education classes are difficult to come by due to privacy concerns and regulations; however, a 2008 Rand report indicated that the number may be as high as 25 percent (Madaus, Miller, and Vance 2009, 14). A 2012 Time cover story on online higher education presented a profile of the new undergraduate and included several interesting statistics. Today’s college student is more in need of remedial classes (36 percent in 2007 as compared to 28 percent in 2000), less economically advantaged, and older. In 2010–2011, 8.9 million students came from low-income housing, as opposed to 176,000 in 1973–1974. Twenty-nine percent were nineteen or older in 2011, as opposed to 14 percent in 1967 (Ripley 2012, 32–41). The changing demographics of the undergraduate experience are further reflected in the fact that racial/ethnic minorities and nonresident aliens now account for 36 percent of all undergraduates. While this figure is still low compared to overall population demographics, it is steadily increasing (McPherson 2010, 33–40).
In her survey of online access to library materials and current law, Camilla Fulton (2011) wrote that barriers to library services exist for a significant segment of the American population and that “nearly 24.5 million people in the United States are unable to retrieve information from library websites” due to visual or hearing impairments (38). Fulton noted that while education rights are protected for persons with disabilities, no federal laws cover web accessibility and (as of 2011, when the article was published) only seventeen states had laws that ensured such access (37). Fulton concluded that although universal web access is a costly and time-consuming enterprise, it is one that should have priority with librarians: “As gatekeepers of information and research resources librarians should want to be the first to provide unrestricted and unhindered access to all patrons despite their ability” (38). Providing such access is the ethical thing to do.
Andromeda Yelton (2012) noted that web accessibility is limited by socioeconomic factors; “the digital divide is not just about who has a computer and who doesn’t. It’s about what kind of Internet we experience on our different devices” (8). Yelton wrote that, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project of 2010, 80 percent of all American adults own a cell phone and 40 percent of those have smart phones with Internet capability (5). According to this Pew study:
There has been a steady increase in wireless Internet access across most demographic groups, with the largest increases among young adults and people with household incomes under $30,000 per year. . . . 12 percent of adults go online wirelessly using cell phones only! (7)
Based on the data from the study, Yelton concluded that those who have cell-only access to the Internet are “disproportionately likely to be on the disadvantaged side of the digital divide” (7). An unintended consequence of the cell-only Internet experience is that users have more difficulty reading PDFs, navigating complicated webpages, and filling out forms. According to Yelton, this type-of-access–socioeconomic divide has “moral significance” for librarians.
Privacy
The third tenet in the Code concerns the right to privacy and confidentiality for the patron: “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.” In a post-9/11 American society, the fear of terrorism—both domestic and international—has created challenges to librarians’ ability to uphold this tenet. One of the biggest challenges has been the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act.
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (commonly known as the PATRIOT Act) was signed into law forty-five days after the September 11 attacks on New York, Washington, and Flight 93 (which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania). Section 215 of the act gives federal agents the power to obtain National Security Letters issued by a FISA (Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act) court that they can then use to access patrons’ library records (including computer records). Library employees are prohibited from disclosing to those patrons that their records have been requested. In 2011, Congress passed, and President Obama signed into law, a four-year extension of the act, which included the controversial library provision.
The troubling power of the PATRIOT Act is just the most recent of various government attempts at library surveillance that have surfaced during different crises in modern American history. Other such initiatives include attacks on the privacy of patron records and attempts to censor collections during the anti-Communism fervor of the McCarthy era and the Library Awareness Program, which was conducted by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) during the 1980s. The “Awareness Program” was a counterintelligence operation conducted in public and academic libraries:
The goals of the program were to restrict foreigners’ access to unclassified scientific information in libraries and to recruit librarians and library staff into reporting on the use of scientific information by foreigners, especially Russian or Eastern Europeans. (Bowman 2003, 6)
For a detailed look at this fascinating piece of library history, see Herbert Foerstel’s (1991) book Surveillance in the Stacks: The FBI’s Library Awareness Program.
Librarians, as individuals and through organizations, have reacted to these ethical challenges in fearless ways. In 1950, during the height of the McCarthy era, librarian Ruth Brown was fired for insubordination when she refused to remove “subversive” materials from the collection of the Bartesville Public Library in Oklahoma. Ms. Brown was supported by both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ALA. Although she was not reinstated (she went on to have a career as a public librarian in Colorado), she was recognized as a hero of intellectual freedom. Brown’s story was popularized in the feature film Storm Center (1956), which starred Bette Davis. In the late 1990s, the Oklahoma Library Association’s Social Responsibility Roundtable founded the Ruth Brown Award to honor her memory (Bowman 2003, 6).
According to the ALA’s (2010) Intellectual Freedom Manual, the Library Awareness Program was exposed by the New York Times in 1987. Public awareness was raised by various librarians in New York who had been contacted by the FBI. They brought the issue to the attention of the New York Library Association and then the ALA: “In response the Intellectual Freedom Committee issued an advisory statement describing the FBI’s actions and recommending that libraries oppose any such requests based on ALA policies” (ALA 2010, 271). More recently, librarians concerned with the implications of the PATRIOT Act have been very vocal about their opinions since the act’s original passage in 2001. In 2003, Attorney General John Ashcroft mocked librarians as “hysterics” (Lichtbau 2003, 23). The ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom responded by selling “Another ‘Hysteric’ Librarian for Freedom” buttons to raise awareness and to support intellectual freedom initiatives (Samek 2007, 53). The ALA continues to be vigilant in educating librarians and the public about the PATRIOT Act and navigating the difficult ethical shoals between the Scylla of lawful government compliance and the Charybdis of defending privacy rights.
While the PATRIOT Act is still a concern, librarians will continue to be challenged by new privacy issues. For example, a future debate might inform the library privacy rights of undocumented immigrants and whether it is legal to provide services to them with state and local tax dollars. Although standards and codes can provide ethical guidelines, and organizations such as the ALA and the ACLU can provide organizational clout, on the front lines of library service, it will be the individual librarian who must take the first stand.
Intellectual Freedom
The Code declares that the organization “uphold[s] the principles of intellectual freedom.” Intellectual freedom, in the context of the library environment, refers to the belief that all library users should have “the right to seek and receive information on all subjects from all points of view without restriction and without having the subject of one’s interest examined or scrutinized by others” (Morgan 2006, 3). A guarantee of intellectual freedom is therefore a guarantee that any library user should be permitted to access any kind of information without obstruction from personnel or from the collection itself (in the form of censorship or selective acquisition). Experiments conducted by Robert Hauptman and Robert Dowd demonstrate the complexity of upholding the tenets of intellectual freedom and illustrate situations in which many librarians might find themselves experiencing a crisis of ethics.
In 1976, then–graduate student Robert Hauptman published an article titled “Professionalism or Culpability? An Experiment in Ethics.” Hauptman’s article detailed an experiment in which he visited six public and seven academic libraries where he requested from the librarians information on how to build a small explosive device. He then specified that he was particularly interested in whether a small amount of explosive would blow up a house. Although one academic librarian refused to help because of institutional policies—that is, because he was not a student at the college—none declined his request for information on ethical grounds. In the 1980s, Robert Dowd repeated Hauptman’s experiment with slightly different details. Instead of explosives, he inquired about how to freebase cocaine (Dowd 1990). He dressed casually, changed his speech patterns, and purposely acted slightly suspect. As in the Hauptman experiment, none of the librarians he approached refused to help him, although some were perhaps less helpful than they could have been. For Dowd, librarians consulted vertical files, periodical indexes, and books in search of an answer. One accompanied him to the stacks and searched book indexes on his behalf. Many “seemed truly sorry” when they could not find what he needed (488).
The experiments of Hauptman and Dowd produced nearly identical results, but the researchers came to very different conclusions. Hauptman was critical of the librarians’ ethical decision making, stating that they had given “the question, within an ethical context, little thought” and “appeared to abjure responsibility to society in favor of responsibility to their role of librarian” (Hauptman 1976, 627). While Dowd too expected to be disappointed in librarians who complied with his request, he eventually came to a different conclusion: “Freebasing cocaine may not be an accepted practice even in our occasionally liberal society, but anyone in this free country should certainly have the right to read about how it is done” (Dowd 1990, 492). These librarians, he came to believe, were correct not to deny aid based on either the appearance of the requesting patron or their own opinions on the appropriateness of the information need. In his article, Dowd supplies some reasons why perfectly law-abiding citizens might have asked a question identical to his own: “A medical student might have elaborated upon a need to know just how cocaine users were abusing their bodies. A writer might have elaborated upon a need for accuracy in a paper he was currently working on” (492). Such a question might also be asked as preparation for an opinion or research paper, a chemistry assignment, the production of a film or play, or out of idle curiosity.
The experiments of Hauptman and Dowd were primarily concerned with whether or not individuals were able to access potentially dangerous or illegal information from libraries. Intellectual freedom issues such as these, while always important, have taken on new significance in recent years. If Robert Hauptman were to ask for assistance finding information about explosive devices today, for example, many librarians might hesitate. The 9/11 attacks dramatically altered the political landscape in the United States and introduced an awareness of terrorism into mainstream American culture. Providing an answer to a reference question regarding explosive devices or the mechanics of other forms of terrorism might understandably conflict with a librarian’s personal ethics and cause him or her to experience doubt, distress, or fear. Situations like this must be considered in discussions about what constitutes ethical behavior in contemporary reference librarianship.
Many believe, in the words of Charles Bunge (1999), that it is “unethical to assist a patron to commit an illegal act or one that is immoral according to the values of society” (38). However, asking for information about an illegal act is not in and of itself an illegal act, nor is it necessarily a declaration of intent to commit an illegal act. Moreover, the average librarian is not equipped to determine the legality of a particular instance of behavior, let alone the legality of behavior that may or may not occur in the future. As Dowd (1990) asks, “Where is the omniscient librarian who can foresee what people will do with the information that may be found in libraries?” (491).
Conclusions and Considerations for the Near Future
Twenty-first-century librarians are constantly navigating complex situations, weighing the ethical standards of the profession against their personal beliefs. The ALA’s Code is clear. Libraries must ensure equitable service policies and access. Librarians should be expected to provide “accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses” to reference questions and requests. They must “resist all efforts to censor library resources.” They have a responsibility to protect each patron’s rights in matters of privacy and confidentiality, particularly in regard to books checked out and resources consulted. However, as previously discussed, librarians may find themselves in situations in which a commitment to service and ethical behavior may conflict with personal religious and political views, legal concerns, and broader questions of morality.
The authors of this chapter set themselves the task of addressing three questions about ethics and reference librarianship. Thus, guidelines and ethical frameworks were defined; current issues were outlined; and the responses by librarians—both individual and organizational—were analyzed. Based on current knowledge and practice, how might library ethics guide professionals in the near future?
Prognostication is a notoriously tricky business, as evidenced by forecasts of impending events such as the Millennium or Y2K bug (scenarios of mayhem caused by the inability of computers to process the change in calendar numbering to the 2000s) and the more recent worries over the Mayan calendar prophesying the end of the world on December 21, 2012. However, some fairly safe forecasts can be made through a look at statistical trends that have been gleaning headlines in the popular press. Over the next twenty years, America will become “grayer.” The first of the baby boomers began turning sixty-five in 2011. As this large cohort becomes seniors, there will be more demands on library services to accommodate their special needs. America is also becoming more diverse:
More than one third of its population belongs to a minority group, and Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment. . . . Even more telling for the future: 44% of children under age 18 and 47% of children under the age of five are now from minority families. (Christie 2009)
Demands for dual-language materials and collection development that is culturally sensitive to the needs of multicultural clientele will continue to be a priority. The demand for e-books will continue to expand in both public and academic libraries, and collection building will need to keep pace with this demand. A recent survey in Library Journal noted that in a one-year period—from 2010 to 2011—the average number of e-books in public libraries increased 184 percent and in academic libraries, 93 percent (Miller 2011, 32). This “dramatic shift” marks a trend to the digital that will continue. Finally, there is a prevalent notion among scholars of popular culture that society is moving into a postliterate era:
In the last 20 years the notion that images overpower words, and the belief that a decreasing lexical literacy among the young has been offset by a increasing visual literacy, has been repeated often enough to become accepted wisdom. (Griffin 2008, 113)
As with the other trends noted previously, this shift to an increased demand for multimedia will necessitate changes in equipment and in collections. In addition, a new emphasis on the importance of critical-thinking skills with regard to media literacy and visual literacy will have an impact on both reference and bibliographic instruction.
Will extant codes provide sufficient guidance as society moves into an uncertain future? Yes, because the Code, like the U.S. Constitution, is straightforward in its values yet broad enough for interpretation. The values encompassed by the Code are reflective of librarianship itself: respect for individuality and freedom of thought. By contrast, a detailed, prescriptive code of behavior would be antithetical to the spirit of the profession because librarianship is both an art and a science. Aspects of librarianship, particularly assessment and infometrics, lend themselves to quantification and scientific tools. However, other aspects of librarianship are rooted in human interactions, such as the reference interview, and are based on the art of communication. As librarianship continues into a new era, tools may change and “hot button” issues will change. However, the authors feel confident in predicting that the core values of librarianship—respect for the patron and a commitment to safeguarding intellectual freedom—will remain constant.
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