Regardless of the path an information professional takes, the individual must be aware of the values, ethics, and foundational principles of the chosen path the professional plans to take. Throughout this program, I found myself referring to 3 different sets of principles including the American Library Association’s (ALA) Issues and Advocacy webpage, the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Ethical Principles webpage, and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Guidelines, Standards, and Frameworks webpage. I referred to these webpages for various assignments and discussion posts, and became familiar with the content of each throughout my tenure at SJSU. What follows is a discussion on the professional ethical considerations from the ALA and AALL.
The American Library Association (ALA) defines ethics in the librarian profession as, “principles that guide the work of librarians, other professionals providing information services, library trustees, and library staffs” (n.d.). Ethical considerations by any organization provides a set of values and foundational principles by which professionals can use to tailor their services to their users. The ALA's ethical guidelines include:
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.
We affirm the inherent dignity and rights of every person. We work to recognize and dismantle systemic and individual biases; to confront inequity and oppression; to enhance diversity and inclusion; and to advance racial and social justice in our libraries, communities, profession, and associations through awareness, advocacy, education, collaboration, services, and allocation of resources and spaces.
In addition to these ALA ethical guidelines, the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) has their own set of ethical principles which are mainly similar to ALA's guidelines with some tailored for the law librarian profession. In my work experience in a law library, I have had first-hand exposure to these ethical guidelines including one which I believe to be one of the most important considerations:
"We provide comprehensive information services using appropriate available resources and implement programs consistent with our employer's mission and goals. We recognize the duty to avoid the unauthorized practice of law." (AALL, n.d.).
While working in the area of law librarianship, one has to understand the concept of the unauthorized practice of law as both an ethical consideration and a potential crime. While providing legal reference help, law librarians have to be mindful of the difference between legal information and legal advice in order to avoid the unauthorized practice of law. In summary, providing legal reference help includes: recommending law books and locating biographical information about attorneys and judges, teaching legal research techniques, performing searches to find information relevant to a legal question, and helping users find broad definitions of legal words or phrases (Allen-Hart, 2018). Providing legal advice includes: recommending or explaining how to fill out a court form, offer an opinion as to how a user's legal problem should be handled, identify any single law that will answer the user's legal question, interpret any legal document, and prepare or draft any type of legal document (Allen-Hart, 2018).
Ethical guidelines provide a foundation on how to assist users with their information need. Understanding the importance of ethics can help the information professional guide their work processes such as reference help. Along with these ethical principles, and other ethical guidelines from professional organizations, the information professional working in a library setting has a clear ethical foundation to base their work from.
This first artifact I am presenting demonstrates my understanding of ethics as it relates to reference work. In Info-210, we were asked to compose a discussion post on ethics in reference. Working in a law library, I decided to focus my discussion post on legal reference work and the complexity of assisting users with legal inquiries. I referred to the American Association of Law Libraries' ethical principles to guide my discussion of answering legal reference questions, explaining the unauthorized practice of law, and distinguishing the difference between legal advice and legal information. My discussion post also highlights another pillar of AALL's values, promoting the equal, open, and effective access of legal information. When the pandemic first hit the U.S. in early 2020, the law library where I worked transitioned very rapidly to an online reference environment to continue to provide legal information to our users. My post concludes with a comment on privacy and confidentiality with respect to our users as another pillar of the values and ethics in the library world.
Artifact # 2 - Organizational analysis Part 1 (Info-204, Information Professions)
This second artifact I am presenting demonstrates my ability to identify, develop, and draft mission, vision, and values statements. In Info-204, we were placed in groups and tasked with doing an organizational analysis on a real organization. We decided to use my workplace, the Riverside County Law Library, as the organization. For the project I served as co-researcher, co-writer, and on-site liaison. For this first part of the project, I assisted in researching articles for the literature review portion, assisting in areas for the SWOT analysis and environmental scan, and creating new mission, vision, and values statements. For this last part, it was on me to come up with new statements. Statements such as mission, vision, and values statement serve as a foundation to guide an organization's service practices. I turned to the AALL's and ALA's various values and foundational guidelines documents to help me create these. In the end, I believe I created new mission, vision, and values statements that can be used in any professional law library organization.
This third artifact demonstrates my knowledge of being aware of professional boundaries and personal biases in the professional environment. In Info-282, we were tasked with composing two separate discussion posts, one on professional boundaries, and one on personal biases. Because this course dealt with the prison library, we had to write the posts in the context of being a prison librarian. In the world of correctional librarianship you will be working with inmates as your library aides. Because of that, it is important to establish professional boundaries quickly and efficiently. In the bigger library world, establishing professional boundaries is not only an ethical decision, but good professional practice. One of the core tenets of librarianship ethics is the provision of equitable, unbiased, and courteous service. This is especially true in correctional librarianship as you will be required to provide service to individuals who may have committed heinous crimes. In any area of librarianship, personal biases must be set aside.
Ethical considerations in librarianship can be complex to navigate. Luckily, there are different documents by almost every professional organization in librarianship that outlines ethics, foundational principles, and values. Becoming familiar with these can ensure that you have a focus of the quality of service needed to serve your type of user. I consider myself lucky to have knowledge of the different articles of foundational principles from different areas of librarianship. Should I choose to branch out and explore different avenues in the LIS field, I know that these documents exist, and I know that I can always refer to them to develop my service to users.
AALL Ethical Principles. American Association of Law Libraries. (n.d.). https://www.aallnet.org/about-us/what-we-do/policies/public-policies/aall-ethical-principles/
Allen-Hart, J. (2018). Chapter 4: Legal reference vs. legal advice. In Caulfield, E. (Ed.), Locating the law: A handbook for non-law librarians (pp. 49-56). Southern California Association of Law Libraries. https://scallnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Chapter-4-Legal-Reference-vs.-Legal-Advice.pdf
Professional Ethics. American Library Association. (n.d.). https://www.ala.org/tools/node/1577/
Photo credit: Lake Mohave, AZ by: Michael Van Aken