Professional Ethics for Library Professionals: Need, Codes of Conduct and Dilemmas

All professional organizations irrespective of their domain are guided by professional ethics or ethical codes. With introduction and implementation of international financial reporting standards (IFRS), even no corporate can function today without following ethical and corporate governance policies. Those who did so or intend to do so were doomed or shall doom one day or other. We have sound examples of big businesses like Price Water Coopers in US and Satyam in India. Such ethical codes for medicine, law, and business have been successfully implemented and practiced for years now. They serve as the framework for professional conduct and provide guidelines in the ethical decision-making process in those disciplines.




Library professionals play an extremely important role in society. Their mission is essentially to provide users of the organization with access to the information that they need. However, while discharging their duties, many a times they find themselves in a position where they are stuck between their duty demand and ethical values. This paper discusses definition of professional ethics, need and relevance of following ethical practices, dilemmas faced by library professionals while discharging their duties with the suggestions what approach a library professional must adopt if stuck in such a situation.



Key Words: Ethics, Professional Ethics, Professional Code of Conduct, Ethical Dilemmas



1. Introduction



For any professional organizations to run successfully there is always a set of values or ethical codes. These ethical codes or values serve as the framework for professional conduct and provide guidelines in the ethical decision-making process. These ethical and professional codes are not meant to replace law or morality but to serve as guidelines for professional conduct.



Library professionals play an extremely important role in society. Their mission is essentially to provide users of the organization with access to the information that they need. However, while discharging their duties, they many a times find them in a position where they are stuck between their duty demand and ethical values.



It is crucial that library professionals to understand and recognize the importance of the ethics and guidelines that govern the organization(s) where they work. This knowledge will assist them in the many of the critical professional decisions they will make. They must learn to develop and hone their own individual sense of ethics, live an ethical life, and be educated about ethical issues in their profession life. Such ethical values and their adoption in day to day work will serve as a guide for their continued pursuit of knowledge and awareness.



2. What are Ethics?



The word “ethics” is derived from the Greek word ethikos meaning custom or character. The concise Oxford Dictionary defines ethics as the treating of moral questions. But this definition is imprecise and leaves a number of loose ends. Whose morals? Which moral questions? The definition provided by the Chambers Dictionary comes closest to providing a workable definition: “Ethics is a code of behavior considered correct”.



According to Stewart (1996), ethics is a subject of study that is concerned with moral principle or framework. In other words, ethics is a branch of philosophy and is considered a normative science also because it is concerned with the norms of human conduct, as distinguished from formal sciences such as mathematics and logic, physical science such as chemistry and physics, and empirical sciences such as economics and psychology. As a science, ethics must follow the same rigors of logical reasoning as other sciences. Ethics, as a science, involves systemizing, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.



According to Iacovino (2002), ethics are not just how we “feel” about something; it is a reasoned process. It may become habitual or intuitive once we have a set of values to apply consistently. He further adds that ethics guide our thinking by providing us with the basis for determining how we should act when an ethical issue is arises. They do not provide definitive answers; only answers that can be justified by way of argument depending on the ethical viewpoints adopted, and the decision-making models and process employed.



3. Professional Ethics for Librarianship



The concept of Professionals ethics is partly comprised of what a professional should or should not do at the work place. It also encompasses a much greater part of the professional life. An ethical valued person shall adopt ethical conduct in all parts of his life. Professional ethics carry additional moral value and responsibilities. According to Finks (1991), professional ethical codes should define the limits of acceptable conduct and give guidance to what kind of actions are regarded as right or wrong in the occupation.



In the history of libraries, The American Library Association (ALA) was the first association to coin a professional code of ethics in 1938, which was later adopted and adapted by other special libraries, as per their respective professional demands. The ALA Code of Ethics provides broad statements that guide ethical decision making and serve as framework for the profession.



For library professionals who work with information storage and retrieval, professional ethics is essentially concerned with the question of who should have access to what information. The core issues of ethics here include intellectual freedom, equitable access to information, information privacy, and intellectual property. Advances in information technology have made the general population more aware of these issues. But library professionals have been concerned with these issues for centuries.





Professional ethics for library organizations are mainly intended to guide the behavior of library professionals. However, these ethical values serve other functions as well. In particular, these ethical values inform the public about what library professionals are committed to doing. For example, library professionals should “uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources”. Also, they should “protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality” and “recognize and respect intellectual property rights”.



4. Model Code of conduct/Professional Ethics for Library Professionals



Professional Ethics and values should form the basis that ought to govern the behavior of LIS Professionals. In the exercise of their duties and responsibilities, LIS professional must observe the following professional ethical values.



4.1 Integrity

It is the most important and cornerstone of all values. LIS professionals must be morally upright. It is this characteristic that distinguishes a LIS professional from a mercenary.



4.2 Impartiality

LIS professionals should look at and treat all aspects of an issue in a fair and unprejudiced manner without any bias.





4.3 Responsiveness to the User Interest

It is a widely accepted principle that LIS Professionals are paid to serve the interests of the stockholders of library. Hence, library professionals should give paramount importance to user interests and needs, it they have to be successful in their tasks.



4.4 Accountability

It has to one of the basic characteristics of any professional including LIS professionals. Library professionals are responsible for all their actions and are accountable to all stakeholders, employees, users, government and the society at large.



4.5 Honesty

Honesty is another one of the basic characteristics for any professionals. Library Professionals must show highest regards for this quality. They should be fair, just and sincere both in character and behavior. They should not indulge in cheating or stealing and should be free of deceit and untruthfulness.



4.6 Transparency

Library professionals must be transparent in all their dealings and work and set standards for others to follow. They should be frank and open. Their actions should be easily discussed and understood by others.



4.7 Financial ethics

Library professionals must set up and follow highest standards of financial ethics. Any acquisition or service of library must solely be based on quality of the goods and services. Such financial decisions must not be taken on the basis of personal relationship, friendship or otherwise. Library professionals must maintain fully transparent and professional relationships with vendors and must avoid any questionable act on their part.



5. Ethical Dilemmas and Professionals Approach



Hauptman (1988) says that, practitioners bear a responsibility to balance the ethical directives of their profession with their obligations to society and their own consciences. Some ethical dilemmas that are faced by library professionals and their behavior in such situations include:



5.1 Privacy and confidentiality

Library professionals are in the business of getting information inputs from its clientele. The input can be in various formats including personal data. For example, some user searching for health information on a specific mental illness may share with library professional that his or her interest in the subject lies due to his/her or a family member’s recent diagnosis, with a reasonable expectation that this fact will not be spread. The professional ethical demand for that library professionals call for refraining himself or herself from gossip or inadvertent divulgence of the fact with others. Hence, it is absolutely essential for a library professional to maintain privacy and confidentiality of such user data. However, the same may not be true, if he or she feels the information searched by a user is suspicious or may cause harm to general public or nation. In that case, the ethical demand will be to share such information with the relevant authorities.



5.2 Acquisitions and censorship

Unrestricted access to information is a basic tenet of librarianship, but with emergence of World Wide Web and widely distributed electronic forms of information may raise new questions about selection and acquisition. For examples, the librarians have no control over the matter published over Internet. Many a times, web page developer with malicious objectives, can mislead the searcher by including very popular search terms even if they don’t belong to the topic discussed on that web page to increase the number of hits of their webpage. Here, the library professional face a dilemma, whether to allow access of undesired information or censor the access. In our opinion, the professional ethical values for a librarian call for them to share the responsibility to inform, educate, and, occasionally, warn patrons about Internet usage.





5.3 Archiving and preservation



The dilemma faced by library professionals here is about choosing the right medium for archiving and preservation of information. Whether they should flow with the wind and adopt electronic technology gadgets as the preferred media or go for print media is the biggest question.



Coyle (1995) calls for using print medium as the preferred archiving medium for long term preservation. According to him, print is a marvelous storage medium: it is easily handled and requires no additional equipment. On the other hand, electronic information, by contrast, is delivered to computers, not people; it requires specific hardware and software to be useful. Furthermore, computer technology advances at such a rate that storage media from only a few years ago are now unreadable. Information that is stored only on such media runs the risk of becoming unreadable as well. In addition, commercial information providers, from whom libraries acquire many electronic resources, may simply decide to drop selections that are not popular or profitable.



Once a work is published in print format and purchased by libraries, it is likely that at least one copy will be preserved by a major research library, even if the publisher or some other agent later causes the work to become unavailable. No such safeguard exists with electronic information. Archiving of electronic information cannot be done by libraries, since the library does not actually own the product



Since the library professionals have been entrusted with the responsibility of archiving and storage of information for posterity, hence, choosing the balance approach whereas a print copy must be preserved in addition to electronic format for immediate and fast usage will be ideal.



5.4 Technology Adoption Impact on Jobs

With the adoption of technology in libraries, automated systems have taken over many tasks of library professionals. This however raises big ethical issue before library community whether technology ought to be allowed to impact the profession if it causes loss or downsizing of jobs. In such a situation, what is the position a librarian professional should take: to go for technology or resist the same to save jobs. The best way to overcome this dilemma is skills upgrade of library professionals so as to become the technology handler.



5.6 Intellectual Property Rights



This is another dilemma often faced by library professionals. Why a library professionals is supposed to be the watchman guiding someone else intellectual property rights by neglecting the basic work of providing access to information to a user? Or what should a librarian give preference between these two issues. There are not clear answers to such questions.



There can be many more such dilemmas a library professional will face while discharging his or her duty, but following the ethical values or the professional ethics code will help him or her in ethical decision making that will be very helpful and will go a long way in his or her professional career.





6. Limitations of the codes



Professional ethics or ethical codes are important and valuable guiding tools for library professionals to conduct his behavior in most professional manner. However, they tend to leave a number of important questions unanswered. First, it is not always clear how library professionals should apply these principles to concrete cases. Second, what should library professionals do when these principles conflict with other ethical principles e.g. organizations own values? It is very common that following or observing more than one ethical principle will lead to confusion and conflict in many cases. In fact, these principles of information ethics can even conflict with each other. For example, respecting intellectual property rights can often get in the way of providing better access to information. Without answering such limitations, library professionals will not be in a position to convince those who do not agree that these principles should be followed.





7. Conclusion



Library professionals must learn to understand the possible and real consequences of their actions. Very often they will face ethical dilemmas in one way or the other or for one reason or the other. In order to deal effectively with these ethical dilemmas, library professionals need to have a good working knowledge of professional ethics. Codes of professional ethics can help to provide such knowledge to some extent. Such ethical issues must be a part of the library science course curricula in all library schools. It is for certain that the professional ethics and principles of an organization may often conflict with societal and personal ethics. In such scenarios, library professionals must follow ethical codes and principles of the profession they are in. Regardless of societal or individual ethics, professional environments dictate adherence to professional codes of ethics.



8. References



1. Adams, H.R. (2002), “Privacy and confidentiality: now more than ever, youngsters need to keep their library use under wraps”, American Libraries, Vol. 33 No. 10, p. 44.

2. ALA (2001), “Questions and answers on librarian speech in the workplace: an explanatory statement of the ALA Code of Ethics, adopted July 2001”, Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, Vol. 50 No. 5, pp. 234-5.

3. American Library Association Council (1995), Code of Ethics of the American Library Association, American Library Association, Chicago, IL.

4. Carbo, T. and Almagno, S. (2001), “Information ethics: the duty, privilege and challenge of educating information professionals [at the University of Pittsburgh]”, Library Trends, Vol. 49 No. 3, pp. 510-18.

5. Coyle, K. (1995), Electronic Information: Some Implications for Libraries, the written version of a presentation given at the 6 June 1995 meeting of the California Academic and Research Librarians. Available: http://www.dla.ucop.edu/~kec/carlart.html

6. Fernando (A C): Business ethics and Corporate Governance. Pearson Education.2006.

7. Finks, L.W. (1991), “Librarianship needs a new code of professional ethics”, American Libraries, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 84-92.

8. Hauptman, R. (1988), Ethical Challenges in Librarianship, The Oryx Press, Phoenix, AZ.

9. Iacovino, L. (2002), “Ethical principles and information professionals: theory, practice and education”, Australian Academic & Research Libraries, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 57-74.

10. Stewart, David: Business ethics. McGraw Hill, 1996

11. Weiss (Joseph W): Business ethics.-3rd.ed.Thomson.2003.

A Salute to All Women

International Women Day, celebrated on 8th March every year, is a small recognition and human race token of appreciation for the significant role that any woman plays not only to an individual life but to society as a whole.




Women are the perfect and best creation of God. Human existence and life is incomplete without women. They are the creators in themselves. Our ancient culture has always regarded and accorded highest status to our women in terms of goddesses. A woman is considered to be “Graha Laxmi’. A girl child is considered to be incarnation of Goddess “Durga”. God has blessed women with extraordinary senses, power and abilities. A woman can bear all sorts of pressures and pains and can still stand firm irrespective of all odd circumstances.

Our world order, that follows patriarchal system, has, however, always discriminated against women. A girl child was never accorded same privileges and facilities those extended to a male child from the same family. They were always considered born to do home tasks and to extend family line. Their education, health and other socio-economical developments were never given importance. They faced all sorts of curbs and discrimination on their freedom to express themselves be it their life style, or their education or choosing their career or free movement. After years of agitations and many movements, women in some parts of the world got some equal rights as that of men but that too is not universal. There are still many places and countries and cultures where women are discriminated against.



Although, the modern world has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women's and societies thoughts about women's equality and emancipation, a lot more has to be done. Women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.



Women have proved themselves in every discipline of life. They have not only reached the highest levels in governing any country but also reached up to the space. In fact very recently Sunita Williams, a NASA astronaut from our own country has established the world record of spending longest period in space. Women have established and proved themselves in armed forces including in battlefields. Women have left their imprints in achieving success in business world too. Indira Nooyi, CEO –PepsiCo is another example of women reaching to highest position even in corporate world, This list is very long. There are countless examples to ascertain that a woman is no way lesser to man and in fact given proper space and chance to flourish, can perform better than male counterparts.



Women play very pivotal role in human development. Their all roles as mother, sister, friend, wife or daughter are very significant in a man’s life. Only a woman makes a man realize or feel important. A man may not be there when a woman needs him but a woman will always be standing firm for his man in spite of all odds. Only a woman can have the courage to leave her parents and her home and join a new family & adopt and adjust to a new life style silently. No man can dare this. It is rightly said that if you educate a man, you educate a single person but if you educate a woman, you educate a generation. World would be a terrible and horrible place to live in without women.



Hence all of us, irrespective of race, gender, caste or class we belong to, should pledge on this Women Day that we shall provide a suitable place and comfort to our women in all aspects of their life and ensure a bright, equal, safe and rewarding future for them. We shall never allow any discrimination or atrocities against those who have blessed us this life. Respecting a woman is synonymous to respecting the God.