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[winkingstar]

Professor Roderer last week: You may be wondering why we're reading about ethics in librarianship next week in the middle of a class about information use/behaviour. Well, the Powers That Be decided you needed to learn a bit about ethics sometime during your MLS program, and this is the class that got stuck with itArticle on ethics for class this

Comments

Please forgive my ignorance

[grimmyx]

I'm at a loss to see where a librarian would need a ethical education or indeed face a ethical situations above and beyond anyone else dealing with the public at large. Maybe they just need some where to ditch the textbooks that the journalism students aren't reading. Educate me please.

Re: Please forgive my ignorance

[winkingstar]

Oh, there's all kinds of ethics issues in libraries, especially since the advent of the digital age. I think most of it relates to intellectual freedom and/or copyright issues in some way, so those are the biggest issues. There's also the issue of privacy, especially with regards to the Patriot Act. Should your check-out records be made available to Homeland Security if they suspect you of terrorism? What should we do if someone asks for information on how to make a bomb? Is our obligation to the patron's privacy or to the safety of others with regards to the potential threat of a patron inquiring about harmful things?

Then there's my favourite issue: censorship. Do we let people ban books from libraries? What about internet filtering (for sites of "ill-repute")? With any material, it's very easy to go from banning one thing to banning everything that's remotely questionable.

There's more, but we're only doing a very general look at ethics and libraries, so I'm a bit hazy on some of the details myself.

Re: Please forgive my ignorance

[grimmyx]

Wow! I never thought of any of that. Very interesting.

[lacontessa11]

*snicker* Maybe your professor considers that BAD advice.