library ethics case study paper

7/21/2019 Library Ethics Case Study Paper

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Stephen Humeston

LIS 407-OL Summer 2015

Rex Krajewski

Ethics Reflection Paper

Scenario: A couple of teenage boys have been grouped around a computer in the [public]

library, talking and laughing. After a while, they come to the desk and say that they've

been trying to search for information about how people make crystal meth from cold

medicines like Sudafed, but the filter on the computer has been blocking them. They want

you to help them find the information and/or disable the filter from the public computer .

This scenario immediately brings to mind the librarian’s professional goal of supporting

the free flow of information. The American Library Association’s (ALA) Code of Ethics clearly

lists these principles of openness. Article II of the Code states that librarians “resist all efforts to

censor library resources” (Bopp and Smith 33). The third article of the ALA’s Library Bill of

Rights also states that “libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their

responsibility to provide information and enlightenment” (43). According to the noted

intellectual freedom advocate John Swan, the ethical imperative for a librarian is the delivery of

the information and not necessarily its content (Weiner 161). Discussing this very issue of

limiting access to Internet resources, David McMenemy et al. argue that such policies and

software are “at [their] root . . . an attack on equity of access, since it defines some informationas inappropriate (91). The authors later even go so far as to rhetorically question whether such a

judgement of unsuitability could be made in the pluralistic milieu of the 21st century.

However it must also be stated that other voices within the library community oppose the

positions of Swan, McMenemy, and the ALA, at least in certain circumstances. After conducting

an experiment in 1976 seeking to gain access to bomb-making instructions, librarian and ethicist

Robert Hauptman spent his entire subsequent career maintaining the importance of impartiality

and openness in librarianship while still aggressively condemning what he saw as the “abjuration

of personal responsibility” and “highly unprofessional act” of potentially enabling crime or other

damaging behavior “in the name of . . . a dubious commitment to information dissemination.”

(“Professional Responsibility” 327). Hauptman offered the following advice addressing first

principles of librarianship ethics whether in print or electronic form: “[If] there is a strong hint

that the tendered information may lead to harm or even catastrophe, the librarian should hesitate,



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balk, or even refuse to help, depending on the specific case.” And again, “if librarians suspect

that the information will be misused, they should proceed with caution. If they know that

detriment is ensured, they must forestall it” ( Ethical Challenges 44).

The voices cited above are admittedly some of the more partisan members of the

discipline but moderate figures can also be found. Perhaps most applicable of these would be

Robert C. Dowd and his parallel study to Hauptman’s. In 1989 Dowd replicated Hauptman’s

experiment, substituting potential terrorism with that of cocaine abuse. While Dowd found

similar results in his librarian responses, his ethical conclusions fell more in support of openness,

reasoning that reading about a topic is not the same as inevitably doing it (483).

Therefore it can be clearly seen that there is no full consensus on the issue within the

practicing librarian community, even in the presence of professional codes; yet guiding

frameworks do emerge. Namely that openness should be pursued where possible, that

information itself is not ethically neutral and librarians should consider their own personal

responsibility in a broader context rather than merely providing an answer to a query, and that

knowledge of a topic is not tantamount to enacting it.

Beyond personal responsibility and professional philosophy there are legal and

organizational structures which come into play with our given situation. It is likely that federal

law will have some recourse to the library’s policies as a public institution. The Children’s

Internet Protection Act (CIPA) of 2000 mandates that software filters be installed on library

computers in order to prevent “access by minors to inappropriate matter on the Internet and

World Wide Web” and to design policies and implement “measures designed to restrict minors'

access to materials harmful to minors” (Helms 22). It would seem likely then that the public

library in question might also have its own locally-determined policies regarding explicitly

illegal activities, at the very least if only to comply with CIPA.

Now that all the philosophical, professional, legal, and organizational context has been

established I can answer the initial question of “What would I do?” In the simplest terms, I

would politely note that the filters are in place because of library policy and that I didn’t have the

authority to override them. This is easily explained without patronizing the teenagers, it

maintains fidelity to the professional expectations of my institution, and in the event that the

patrons did have illegal intent, it would be in compliance with the letter and spirit of the CIPA

laws. Now, if they persisted and wanted additional help in finding the information I would



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probably do two or three things concurrently. First, I would try to steer them toward any

information housed within our print collection. Ostensibly the print collection would have been

vetted and selected in some capacity by the collection development librarian/team/department

and therefore would be more of a known quantity. (I think if the library deliberately housed

“Illegal Drug Dealing and Manufacture for Dummies,” there would be a larger concern at hand.)

Secondly, if no immediate resources were within the library’s holdings, I could offer to do some

follow-up research to find something that could be helpful. This could also accomplish several

things at once: It would give me an opportunity to consult with other librarians or my supervisor

as to the ethics of the situation and it could allow me to find resources which could provide

accurate and useful information to a curious observer which didn ’t necessarily offer step-by-step

instructions for carrying it out. Finally, following in the line of Hauptman’s advice and allowing

for Dowd’s benefit of doubt, I would do my best to intuit the context and motivation behind the

patrons’ curiosity as far as possible, even asking directly if necessary. In this case the ethics

surrounding patron privacy would be centered on determining whether or not I would be party to

enabling illegal activity and not about mitigating the risk of frightening away a patron in genuine

need of help. It is true that there are some possible situations where a teenager might be looking

for that information with innocent intent, but the boisterous group dynamics described in the

scenario above do not lend themselves to that kind of context. Further explanation could dispel

the ambiguity and such confirmation would be necessary and appropriate in the light of such

content.

In summary, the library policy on Internet filters is set and not up for debate from my

position. As for further involvement regarding the provision of information, I see three

possibilities: either the teens are harmlessly joking and their entertainment has been frustrated by

the library’s filters and protective policies, the teens are seeking something illegal and were

prevented precisely as the policies intended, or the teens have a legitimate need for the

information. As such, by tentative denial and further inquiry, only the third scenario yields the

possibility of a professional failure and it can easily be mitigated through the follow-up

conversation and engagement. If, however, the second scenario is the case then a significant

breach has been made on the ethical, professional and legal levels.



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Works Cited

Bopp, Richard R. and Linda C. Smith. Reference and Information Services: An Introduction.

Santa Barbara, Calif: Libraries Unlimited, 2011.

Dowd, Robert C. "I Want Find Out How to Freebase Cocaine (Or) Yet Another Unobtrusive

Test of Reference Performance." The Reference Librarian 11.25/26 (1990): 483-493.

Hauptman, Robert. Ethical Challenges in Librarianship. Phoenix: Oryx, 1988.

Hauptman, Robert. "Professional Responsibility Reconsidered." Rq 35 (1996): 327-329.

Helms, Cathy Harris. "Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) And Public Libraries." Georgia

Library Quarterly 41.1 (2004): 21-26.

McMenemy, David, Alan Poulter, and Paul F. Burton. A Handbook of Ethical Practice: A

Practical Guide to Dealing With Ethical Issues in Information and Library Work .

Oxford: Chandos, 2007.

Wiener, Paul B. “On My Mind: Mad Bombers and Ethical Librarians: A Dialogue with Robert

Hauptman and John Swan.” Catholic Library World , 58.4 (January/February 1987): 161-

163.

library ethics case study paper

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