Information Ethics: The Duty, Privilege and Challenge of Educating Information Professionals - University of Pennsylvania

Library Trends, Wntr, 2001 by Toni Carbo, Stephen Almagno

ABSTRACT

QUESTIONS CONCERNING ETHICS AND HOW AN individual can act ethically when confronted with issues related to libraries, archives, and, more broadly, information have ever been present in our professional lives whenever individuals considered their own principles and actions as related to creating, organizing, managing, using, disseminating, preserving, and providing access to information and documents in all forms. To address the duty, privilege, and challenge of educating librarians, archivists, and other information professionals to understand what ethics is and how to make ethical decisions in their personal lives and work, the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh developed a Dean's Forum on Information Ethics, a course offered twice a year, a Web site, and an information ethics program.

This article describes the history and evolution of information ethics at the University of Pittsburgh and describes the course and its three components: an introduction addressing the reason and need for moral instruction and ethical reflection; the necessary steps for facing up to and resolving a moral dilemma; and the ethical issues in librarianship, information technology, and management. The course and lecture series are considered within the broader context of the school's curriculum and the multicultural international society.

INTRODUCTION

Questions concerning ethics and how an individual can act ethically when confronted with issues related to libraries, archives, and, more broadly, information, have been ever present in our professional lives whenever individuals considered their own principles and actions as related to creating, organizing, managing, using, disseminating, preserving, and providing access to information and documents in all forms.

Librarians, archivists, and other information professionals often encounter conflicts when their own individual values differ with those of others or with those of the library or of the organization for which they work. While other articles in this issue address examples from individual libraries and organizations, this article is focused on the duty, privilege, and challenge of educating librarians, archivists, and other information professionals to understand what ethics is and how to make ethical decisions in their personal lives and work.

WHY STUDY INFORMATION ETHICS?

In our increasingly complex, multicultural, and information-intensive society, many critical issues related to information access and use are misunderstood, inadequately considered, or even ignored. These issues may involve balancing individual and societal needs (such as in protecting both an individual's privacy and the public's right to know); resolving conflicting views about library collection policies between librarians and parents of schoolchildren; resolving disagreements between individual archivists and retention policies concerning electronic records; understanding one's own view of what is ethical; or many other topics. In a growing number of instances, decisions concerning information access and use are placing information professionals in sensitive, and sometimes vulnerable, positions.

Knowing how to create, find, manage, access, preserve, and use information effectively provides a form of power to the information professional, whether it is through speed of access to needed sources, the ability to hack into a system, or complex skills to find and create new multimedia information resources. Information professionals, as well as those who rely on them to provide a wide array of services to help people work more efficiently, compete with others, or improve the quality of their lives, must recognize and understand that with power comes responsibility. Like those who acquired power from their knowledge of how to split the atom, librarians, archivists, and other information professionals must learn to understand the possible and real consequences of their actions, reflect on the alternative choices they may make, and determine how best to use their power and act responsibly.

Individuals seeking to become professional librarians or archivists, or seeking to work in other types of cultural heritage institutions or information-related organizations must first learn to develop and hone their own individual sense of ethics, live an ethical life, and be educated about ethical issues in their professional life. In addition, the information professional must learn how--and be ready--to make ethical decisions and take ethical actions (Hammond, Keeney, & Raiffa, 1998).

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF INFORMATION ETHICS AT THE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION SCIENCES

Initial Idea

In 1980, when she was executive director of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), Toni Carbo encountered numerous examples of ethical issues related to libraries, archives, and other information-related organizations and companies. She had learned over the previous years while working in libraries and with database producers about the many information policy issues facing decision makers, especially those issues relating to access. These issues included who should have access to what information; how to protect individual privacy, corporate proprietary information, and national security data; the best way to provide equitable access to individuals with disabilities; how to make complex scientific and technical data easily comprehensible by the lay public; along with a wide range of other difficult questions. At NCLIS, as she visited small libraries in rural remote areas, addressed questions of meeting the diverse needs of an increasingly multilingual and multicultural society, learned of archivists' concerns about saving "America's memory," responded to questions concerning archiving of data from land and weather satellites, and tried to help provide library and information services to meet the country's needs, she quickly learned that the problems were even more complex and challenging. What became increasingly apparent to her was that little was being done to help individuals understand the ethical implications of their actions and how they could behave ethically and make the best decisions.