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LIS 520 - Ethics for Library and Information Professionals
LIS 520 - Ethics for Library and Information Professionals
Despite the challenging nature of ethics in any profession, I truly enjoyed learning about the dilemmas that information professionals face daily as they try to meet the responsibilities of providing access to information while also protecting others’ privacy and identities. Competencies B7, C9 and C10 were really guiding principles for this class.
Image Courtesy of CBLDF.org
I was not expecting Competency B7, “Students will demonstrate knowledge of the roles of interdisciplinary, interprofessional, and community collaboration and alliances in the provision of library and information services,” to play such a strong role in the course work we performed. But it is crucial to remember the libraries, museums and archives are all cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) and are often funded by taxpayer money. Thus, it is the responsibility of information professionals to be present in the community, responding to its desires and its needs. There has to be a conscientious effort to bring patrons in on the decisions being made while also ensuring that no single agenda is forced through the actions of a CHI. It is a precarious balance. One of the ethical dilemmas we examined focused on a library that faced pushback from community members because of its inclusion of positive LGBTQIA+ literature in the young adult section. The patrons rightly pointed out that their tax dollars did fund the library and they did not approve of this stocking; to remedy the problem, they demanded the library remove all these books and instead place more conservative Christian literature on the topic.
As disagreeable as I find anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment and behaviors, I found myself arguing that those patrons had the right to their beliefs and to make the demands they did. That was truly the heart of the issue: everyone's rights were valid but there was no clear way to respect them all. Applying Competency C10 - “Students will demonstrate the ability to recognize and analyze ethical issues and dilemmas in library and information settings and propose reasoned courses of action” - my classmates and I voiced different thoughts and solutions, grounding them in a variety of ethical theories. I enjoyed having the opportunity in class to examine how the library connected with community members as well as the city council to reach a compromise that tried to honor the ethics of all parties but I also appreciated the opportunity to talk through a real-life problem, hear different sides and identify potential solutions.
Competency C9, “Students will demonstrate an understanding of the values and service orientation of the library and information professions and their applications in their areas of career interest,” was probably my biggest takeaway from this course. My goal in the profession is to work in archiving, not in libraries or museums. The first half of my coursework was largely focused in the library world and so I appreciated the way this ethics course looked at issues in archiving, notably the tug of war between the universal human rights to information and to privacy. Professor Kay Mathiessen had us examine and evaluate an institution’s ethical policy in our final project. I met once again with the head archivist, Mary Graham, at Arizona State Museum to interview her about the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM).
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I wanted her perspective on how the PNAAM are applied to the expansive anthropological and archaeological collections of different Native peoples held in the ASM archives. I also researched everything from the United Nations stance on information and privacy to the difference between individual and collective privacy rights and how they apply to non-Western belief systems which are often not given the same sacrosanct protection of Juedo-Christian institutions. I found a moral imperative in this work that will guide me as an archivist: I am committed to providing access to information to other human beings because they need to know about the world to live in it safely and successfully. However, I will do everything in my power to honor the sanctity and privacy due each person or group.
LIS 571 - Introduction to Information Technology
LIS 571 - Introduction to Information Technology
This course would be the first of seven that I took with Professor Bruce Fulton, digital information guru. I had such a narrow concept of information technology or even what digital information fully entails. This class forced my blinders off so I could see what a great big IT world we live in. In the same way that LIS 504 was my introduction to the information sciences in all its iterations, LIS 571 was my introduction to information technology. Competency A1, “Students will demonstrate understanding of basic principles, concepts, and terminology related to the creation, organization, management, access, and use of knowledge and information and will demonstrate the ability to apply them to practical problems,” encompasses the work we did in this course.
Professor Fulton’s semester plan was reminiscent of Professor Merry’s in LIS 506. We used a survey textbook called Fluency with Information Technology by Lawrence Snyder and Ray Henry to introduce concepts like how computer development, computer memory functions, basics of binary, HTML, XML, JavaScript, Excel spreadsheets and so much more to introduce the “basic principles, concepts and terminology.”
It was through his lectures and activities that we built on our basic knowledge to develop real skill sets and produce deliverables that have application within the LIS field. Our Excel spreadsheet work focused around budgets that might need to be submitted when applying for grants. Using HTML, XML and JavaScript, I built basic web pages, something I never dreamed I could do but would be infinitely useful in a library or archival environment. In a nod to the unique ways that information science professionals communicate with patrons and community members on their websites, we learned how to create podcasts. Professor Fulton even had us enroll in Code Academy and take multiple lessons on Java Script so we could have (a) a basic understanding of how it works and (b) opportunities to practice each skill as we learned it, building on them throughout the lesson. This course not only got me started with the basic information but also give me a structured “sandbox” to experiment in, with Profesor Fulton offering feedback and support throughout.
LIS 673 - Managing the Digital Information Environment
LIS 673 - Managing the Digital Information Environment
Another adventure with Professor Fulton, this class was a huge step up from 571 as we dove deep into what digital information is and how it needs to be handled in terms of technology and also from an office-based management perspective. One of the things I really liked was that, even though we were studying major trends in digital information and the research behind them but we were also examining how a company must function successfully in both its physical world and the digital environment. I particularly appreciated the textbook, Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership by Lee Bolman and Terry Deal because it examined in thorough detail the business world that the digital world is situated within.
Competencies B6 and B7, “Students will demonstrate knowledge of the management of information resources, services and organizations and apply this knowledge to their areas of career interest” and “S,tudents will demonstrate knowledge of the roles of interdisciplinary, interprofessional, and community collaboration and alliances in the provision of library and information services” were hit over and over again with our semester long group project. My partners and I created a hypothetical project around digitizing the Morenci Community Mining Archives so they could be put to greater use within the community. This project required us to examine the city of Morenci and its history as well as its current archives. From there, we developed a mission statement along with a strategic plan for mobilizing volunteer forces in the digitizing process and, ultimately, working closely with public educators in the local district to bring students into the archives. We performed internal and external environmental analyses, risk assessments, a SWOT analysis, a needs assessment and a work breakdown structure to help us understand the different resources and relationships we would be balancing along with their associated challenges. We worked the process from beginning to end in much the same way we might in an archival institution, doing our best to anticipate the future realities we would face. I particularly appreciated the large community outreach component of the project because it helped us to plan for collaborative relationships of all different kinds.
As overwhelming as that first year was, particularly my summer school courses, it reinforced for me that I made the right decision to go back to school . Quite unintentionally, the heavily digital focus of this first year gave me a strong foundation as I moved forward with more in-depth archival studies. Despite being slightly burned out following a hectic summer, I found myself looking forward to finally starting to learning even more new information. My newly acquired digital proficiency served me well as I moved into the next part of my program. Ultimately what I learned, combined with my experience interning at Arizona State Museum in digital collections help me earn a digital archiving internship in Washington, DC the following summer. I was offered positions at both the National Archives (NARA) and the Smithsonian; I opted for the latter because it focused in digital archiving.
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