Ethical considerations regarding library nonprofessionals: competing perspectives and values

Many of these principles find manifestations in codes of ethics, such as the Code of Ethics of the American Library Association (1995), the Professional Guidelines of the American Society for Information Science, or the Library Bill of Rights (1980). It should be obvious that there are tensions among these principles and that, depending on the ethical context, different ones may take precedence or priority. For example, in order to promote social harmony or utility, a collection developer may well order only those books that are of interest to the majority of patrons in his or her library. On the other hand, in order to be just and to respect the dignity of a wide variety of human beings that may frequent the library, such a developer must also order works that are representative of a wide variety of viewpoints that may in fact be unpopular with the majority of patrons in a library--e.g., books supporting the acceptance of homosexuality. Thus, a library employee may on different occasions embrace different ethical principles, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to prescribe a particular rule whereby one principle should always supercede another. While it may be true that concerns for justice must be addressed in most ethical situations, it is doubtful to say that such concerns should always supercede interests of social harmony or organizational trust.

TYPES OF OBLIGATIONS

These principles are most often manifested in ethical values and obligations consequent to one's personal, organizational, or environmental roles or interactions, often as push-pull influences derived from personal values and/or one's role in an organization or society. Obligations are values that have some force due to contract, promise, duty, or long-standing custom. Obligations can be grouped in the following manner: (1) obligations to oneself, (2) organizational obligations (obligations to the organization itself and obligations of employers to employees and vice versa), and (3) environmental obligations, environment here referring to the context of ethical decisions in which particular factors emerge based on the problem under consideration. For example, patrons raise ethical concerns when their behavior causes problems for other patrons or library staff (see Froehlich, 1997, pp. 14-24). Such considerations do not arise until a problem emerges--e.g., a homeless person comes to the library looking for a place to sleep. Environmental obligations include obligations to clients (e.g., competent service), obligations to systems (which are indirect obligations to clients in that systems should be improved and defects in such systems eliminated, so that client service continues to strive for high quality), obligations to third parties (e.g., fair dealings with vendors), obligations to the profession (e.g., establishing and adhering to high professional standards), obligations to library boards or governing bodies, obligations to community or cultural standards (e.g., the issue of selection versus censorship indicates the tension between community standards and professional and societal obligations), and obligations to society at large (social responsibility--e.g., in supporting the rights of all individuals and organizations, regardless of their political correctness).