Competency Description and Scope:

Adhering to an ethical code ensures institutional and professional continuity and stability, even as society advances and technology develops. Aside from the responsibility to provide excellent informational services, one of the most fundamental ethical considerations for LIS professionals is the need to assist the community in their pursuit of truth; however, some scenarios may present a range of ethical challenges. Our professional values and ethics serve as a foundation for our behavior, policies, and services, and they are, for the most part, the same values and ethics that we embrace in our personal lives—but not always. Our personal ideals and ethics sometimes clash with our professional norms. In such circumstances, LIS experts must seek to establish a balance between the two. When such situations occur, there is no clear solution; much of the solution relies on the particular problem and the potential consequences for the individuals being serviced, the organization, the profession as a whole, and the person making the ethical decisions. In other words, the fundamentals of librarianship value intellectual freedom and it is through the code of ethics that defends these freedoms and helps guide decision-making. The policy and practice to endorse this defense were introduced to me in LIS coursework which includes ALA’s Code of Ethics, the Society of American Archivists (SAA’s) Code of Ethics for Archivists, and the ASIS&T Professional Guidelines.

Code of Ethics of the American Library Association

The American Library Association's (ALA) Code of Ethics acknowledges the likelihood of ethical dilemmas and the need of codifying and conveying the moral responsibility of information service professionals. While the statements are broad, they are guidelines that address three general areas: access issues, rights of authors and creators, and employment issues. The first four principles I-IV are information-specific. Service and intellectual freedom are emphasized. The remaining principles V-VII address workplace attitudes and practices. These principles include respecting others, not pushing personal or private interests at work, and aiming for excellence via professional growth.

The Library Bill of Rights (LBR), the defining document of the American Library Association (ALA), was adopted in 1939 and lays out the basic responsibilities of libraries and librarians. Censorship provisions were not initially included but were added in the 1940s (Magi and Garnar, 2015). In the LBR, the duties of libraries are laid out as the following:

I. Books and other library items should benefit the community the library serves. Materials shouldn't be prohibited based on their creators' origin, background, or beliefs. community and rejecting censorship based on the characteristics of an author.

II. Libraries should show both sides of current and historical topics. Partisan or ideological disagreement shouldn't ban or delete materials.

III and IV. Libraries should fight censorship in order to educate and inform.

V. Individuals will not be denied no matter their origin, age, background, or views.

VI. Libraries should exhibit spaces and meeting rooms to the public fairly, regardless of individuals' or organizations' views or connections.

(Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations)

SAA core values statements and code of ethics

The SAA approved the "Code of Ethics for Archivists" in 2012. (SAA 2018). All aspects of professional relationships, judgment, authenticity, security, access and use, privacy, and trust are evaluated. If archival services have an inherent ethical problem, the archivist must use proper techniques to preserve long-lasting materials. The obligation to restrict the use of these materials raises ethical concerns. The desire of an archivist to preserve the human record is understandable, but archives are unhelpful to the community if they are difficult to access. The archivist has a moral duty to keep restrictions to a reasonable level and to provide finding aid. The presence of rare and fragile masterpieces or the confidentiality of contributed letters and correspondence are two examples of ethical quandaries in archival work. Recipients are sometimes unaware that they have contributed material, and it is the Archivists' responsibility to protect such people's privacy, especially if they had little control over how the papers were distributed. Like other information professions, archivists must strike a balance between information access and privacy protection. Archivists frequently compete for materials with other archives. My archival studies taught me that acquiring records entails approaching them ethically.

ASIS&T Professional Guidelines

The Association for Information Science and Technology's 1992 ethical principles are more holistic than the ALA Code of Ethics since they apply to all information professionals, not only librarians. These rules recognize that certain information services are private and that employers' proprietary interests must be considered. The ASIS&T principles specify three ethical responsibilities: 1) to employers, customers, and system users; 2) to the profession; and 3) to society. Like the ALA code, these principles protect customers' privacy, confidentiality, and equitable treatment. The rules stress the responsibility of individuals who build and operate information systems to ensure their security. As in the ALA code, professional duty involves promoting ongoing education. The requirements also include not misrepresenting one's credentials or the information system utilized. The obligation to society emphasizes open and equitable information access (ASIS&T 2019).

Importance to the Profession:

Although it is intuitively clear that librarians should oppose censorship and defend intellectual freedom, safeguarding intellectual freedom is one of the most difficult aspects of the library job and a matter of much professional disagreement. Quite naturally, there is also considerable debate on how libraries should take a stance on "neutrality" and how it should be defined. It is critical to research the various movements concerning what it means to be neutral in the information professions because, whether you want to be involved or not, you will become involved. Being in the information profession, it is very important to know the history of ALA, SAA, and any other code of ethics, because these basic rules are still used in the 21st century. Being aware of this will improve the process, practice, collection, and technologies for the community we tend to serve. 

Libraries as Neutral Organizations

Materials from authors such as Douglas Foskett's "The Creed of Librarian: No politics, No religion, No morals", argues that the best practice of librarianship is "virtually to vanish as an individual person, except insofar as his personality sheds light on the workings of the library," are utilized in reference service (1962, p.9). In 1972, David Berninghausen published "Social Responsibility vs. the Library Bill of Rights," an essay that advocated for librarian neutrality with the fear that the library organization's attempts to be involved in political topics. He strongly believed that having a political stance, with indication to the Library Bill of Rights, would "destroy the viability... and weaken... the full picture of reality" and he concluded his thoughts that "it is not the purpose of ALA to take positions on how [specific] issues are resolved" and it would be against the code of ethics if on the contrary. Even in the 21st century, in 2018, speakers at an American Library Association gathering debated the neutrality of libraries. James LaRue, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, reacted directly to this topic by noting that he feels the neutrality of librarians has three aspects. First is service, and he refers to Article V's prohibition on preferential treatment. The second is facility access, where he mentions keeping an open mind since everyone has the right to seat at the table. The third is collections, which he describes as the "strongest barrier against the transmission of toxic ideas" (2018). The rationale seems to be that these liberties are neutral since they prevent the government from choosing sides, which aligns with the definition of neutrality offered above by the Oxford English Dictionary. While not officially stated, library advocates in the US seem to rely on these democratic values and traditions when defending neutrality as a professional virtue.

Librarianship as a Neutral Profession

At the time Berninghausen was writing, a number of librarians started to challenge the neutrality tradition. The "The Beringhausen Debate" in Library Journal Classics with rebuttals for Berninghausen and anybody who maintains his beliefs was the most unforgettable to me. In conclusion, all agree that defining neutrality as an inactive function is a false ideal that interferes with librarians' social responsibility duty, which is specifically mentioned in the code of ethics as the basic objective of librarianship. William Summers, among the seven writers, best exemplifies their idea of neutrality: "The underlying flaw in the social responsibility movement is not that the ALA will force a viewpoint on librarians, but that librarians will fail to impose a position on the ALA." (1993). In favor of these writers, ALA's own history has shown that neutrality cannot avoid taking a political position. As the United States has been intrinsically linked to settler colonialism, slavery, segregation, and state-sanctioned discrimination, it was not until 1961 that the ALA advocated for equitable library service for all residents, including African Americans. The ALA established the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) in 1970 with the goal of "making libraries responsive to current social needs." Since then, SRRT has addressed a variety of issues, such as advocating for international human rights, racial minorities and gays, the poor and homeless, and promoting equal rights for women. Between 1984-1990, a small group of librarians, the members of Librarians for Nuclear Arms Control (LNAC), adopted a radical mindset because they believed they needed to "literally save the world" as they published opinion pieces and letters from its members, reports on protests and other peace activities by librarians, satires of government policies, reprints of articles by outside scholars, bibliographies on arms control, and witty anti-war caricatures. R. David Lankes, University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science, stated in the 21st century at the same 2018 ALA conference, "if we as librarians do not seek to address these inequities and shape the definitions, then we are not neutral; we are harmful and instruments of oppression."

Concluding Thoughts

The term "neutrality" is virtually missing from the ALA code. However, neutrality is often the main topic in professional debates that we see today. When neutrality is discussed, it is often conflated with intellectual freedom, as it was explicitly at the Presidential Program in 2018. Because of this, some LIS professionals might be hesitant to collect, display, or look for materials that show beliefs and attitudes that are very different from the community or even their moral standards. Information from resources such as the ALA Code of Ethics, Standards Manual, Library Bill of Rights, and Freedom to Read statement provide guidance when faced with an ethical dilemma, but it is up to the librarian or information professional to act ethically and best utilize policies and procedures. Libraries are not just buildings with collections with a standard set of rules; rather, they are communities in search of the most basic human pursuit: meaning. And in order to find meaning, we must do our best to defend intellectual freedom and demonstrate our knowledge of the ethics, values, and guiding principles of one of the information professions. We must also be prepared to discuss the significance of these ideas in this profession.

Through SJSU coursework we had to research and be comfortable with the fundamentals. I believed the ultimate goal was to aspire to always stay aware, stay connected to the community, and remain relevant to information institutions and to the community they serve. In summary, as with any innovation, there are two points of view regarding neutrality that inspire revised codes of ethics or new governing documents. On the one hand, some are concerned that increased advocacy on behalf of no novelty can result in increased vocal opposition to libraries and potentially bias library collections and services. However, there are many who believe that maintaining a purely neutral stance endorses the existing quo, which sustains inequalities (Stillwell et al. 2016). Current library concepts and practices will undoubtedly be put to the test by the growing population and the ensuing political, social, and economic developments. It is a dilemma that the public library will confront for many years to come, which is why competency A is so important to me and other future LIS members who may one day participate in the debate.

Preparation to Understand Competency A

It served as an introduction to the discipline for newcomers like myself who wanted to identify and debate important themes and subjects in LIS that are current in the United States. ALA continues to influence the profession for years to come. For instance, the primary topic of my first evidentiary object was escape rooms and how they might be incorporated into the library, but I found myself immersed in a broader social, economic, political, and cultural context when I referred to ALA COVID-19 news. In my second and third pieces of evidence, I discovered that the current role of LIS professionals and the professional difficulties are best understood by understanding how history and technology have shaped LIS education and the information profession. As my last evidential object, I took a position on how I considered the ALA code of ethics should be implemented, namely by expressing my perspective on the present condition of banned books. Therefore, this page will have the evidence necessary to meet the requirements for Competency A, since each object gives information and promotes contemporary librarianship with awareness of the ethics, values, and foundational principles.