So I was excited to do the reading this week when I saw that the topic to be covered was ethics, I think that ethical issues as they related to libraries and archives are very interesting. In many of my archives classes we have discussed the issue of ethical decisions at length and I have always found these discussions very engaging. So I was surprised to see that we only had two readings this week the ALA Code of Ethics from 2008, and an article titled Dangerous Questions the Reference Desk: A Virtue Ethics Approach, by Mark Lenker, also written in 2008.
What's more I was extremely disappointed and quite frankly deeply annoyed with the Lenker reading. While Lenker provided what I believe he felt were realistic hypothetical case studies I found them to be ridiculous and utterly unhelpful. Let me say that I am not saying that patrons may not ask the very questions that Lenker's fictional patrons ask, in fact I'm quite sure they do. However, I found the entire premise of the article and the lack of conclusions drawn to be frustratingly simple minded and hyperbolic.
The range of what he lists as "dangerous questions" is problematic in and of itself, to group in reference desk questions about building a bomb with questions about growing pot doesn't even make sense. If you're going to make ethical judgments about these, and I'm not saying that one should, but if you were, a bomb could physically hurt a lot of people, some teenager asking about growing pot is probably pretty harmless, but right there a LOT of potentially very unfair assumptions are being made. Really the main thing that both of these reference questions have in common is that patrons are asking for information, information which presumably already exists in the library. They are not purchasing C4 and fertilizer, or a hydroponics. Reading about something or even researching it does not imply any form of action on the part of the reader beyond READING, and while it is always important to use ones judgement in any situation, I think that the judgmental assumptions made in this article about the questions themselves are extremely problematic.
So clearly I was upset about this article, but if I didn't find the issues it discussed to be a worthwhile discussion of ethics then what would I have preferred?
What I was expecting from this week and in fact hoping for would be questions about censorship, collection development decisions, perhaps even funding and financial issues etc.
For example:
Censorship: What does one do when faced with a community or even just a single parent who is upset about a book held in your collection? What if part of you agrees with the patron's concerns, but you feel that it is more important not to censor than to remove a book simply because it makes you uncomfortable? What if you don't agree with the patron's concerns, but still have to deal with them in a professional manner? What if your library makes a decisions to censor part of the collection and you don't agree with this decision?
Collection Development: What if you work in a special collection library and weeding of the collection needs to be done, how do you make choices about what to get rid of (considering that much of your collection is unique)? What if you work in a library that holds archival material and what if some of the information contained in those archives is not viewable to the public for a certain number of years to protect individuals mentioned in those documents? What if (this is a true story) your library holds academic records of a presidential candidate because he went to school there, and what if a request to deliver those records to the government has been made and approved, because there are things in them that they don't want getting out. What if you don't like the candidate and you could easily photocopy the documents and leak them, but you know this would jeopardize not only your own career, but that of your colleagues, and the reputation of your institution?
Financial: What if your library needs funds and you are offered money by an organization whose beliefs are fundamentally opposed to your own, or might cause some of your patrons to feel alienated if they knew you had taken the money from that organization? What if you are offered a donation, but only if you use it for certain things? What if selling a part of your collection would bring in much needed funds?
What's more I was extremely disappointed and quite frankly deeply annoyed with the Lenker reading. While Lenker provided what I believe he felt were realistic hypothetical case studies I found them to be ridiculous and utterly unhelpful. Let me say that I am not saying that patrons may not ask the very questions that Lenker's fictional patrons ask, in fact I'm quite sure they do. However, I found the entire premise of the article and the lack of conclusions drawn to be frustratingly simple minded and hyperbolic.
The range of what he lists as "dangerous questions" is problematic in and of itself, to group in reference desk questions about building a bomb with questions about growing pot doesn't even make sense. If you're going to make ethical judgments about these, and I'm not saying that one should, but if you were, a bomb could physically hurt a lot of people, some teenager asking about growing pot is probably pretty harmless, but right there a LOT of potentially very unfair assumptions are being made. Really the main thing that both of these reference questions have in common is that patrons are asking for information, information which presumably already exists in the library. They are not purchasing C4 and fertilizer, or a hydroponics. Reading about something or even researching it does not imply any form of action on the part of the reader beyond READING, and while it is always important to use ones judgement in any situation, I think that the judgmental assumptions made in this article about the questions themselves are extremely problematic.
So clearly I was upset about this article, but if I didn't find the issues it discussed to be a worthwhile discussion of ethics then what would I have preferred?
What I was expecting from this week and in fact hoping for would be questions about censorship, collection development decisions, perhaps even funding and financial issues etc.
For example:
Censorship: What does one do when faced with a community or even just a single parent who is upset about a book held in your collection? What if part of you agrees with the patron's concerns, but you feel that it is more important not to censor than to remove a book simply because it makes you uncomfortable? What if you don't agree with the patron's concerns, but still have to deal with them in a professional manner? What if your library makes a decisions to censor part of the collection and you don't agree with this decision?
Collection Development: What if you work in a special collection library and weeding of the collection needs to be done, how do you make choices about what to get rid of (considering that much of your collection is unique)? What if you work in a library that holds archival material and what if some of the information contained in those archives is not viewable to the public for a certain number of years to protect individuals mentioned in those documents? What if (this is a true story) your library holds academic records of a presidential candidate because he went to school there, and what if a request to deliver those records to the government has been made and approved, because there are things in them that they don't want getting out. What if you don't like the candidate and you could easily photocopy the documents and leak them, but you know this would jeopardize not only your own career, but that of your colleagues, and the reputation of your institution?
Financial: What if your library needs funds and you are offered money by an organization whose beliefs are fundamentally opposed to your own, or might cause some of your patrons to feel alienated if they knew you had taken the money from that organization? What if you are offered a donation, but only if you use it for certain things? What if selling a part of your collection would bring in much needed funds?
I completely agree with your thoughts on the Lenker article! When I read it and wrote my blog post, I wasn't nearly as miffed, but in hindsight, the article becomes less and less relevant. I don't understand why a) asking about growing pot is labeled as dangerous and b)why the librarian feels like this is an ethically dicey example. Another one of our blogging colleagues brought up a good point about this as well. Students WOULDN'T ask this question. They would just Google the answer. Coming from an academic perspective, students (including myself) ask for weird sources all the time for completely benign reasons.
ReplyDeleteYour examples are much more thoughtful than those presented in the Lenker reading. I would like to have a discussion about what to do when a parent freaks out about a book you have on the shelf (since that is much more likely than students coming in to ask about growing pot). I hope our class discussion talks about more relevant examples, rather than the ones discussed in the readings.
I had similar reactions to the Lenker article as you and Grace did. I do not think I reacted as strongly as you did initially, but I feel that your post states a lot of the issues I was having with the article and struggling to describe. For me, the biggest problem I had with the article was the lack of conclusions drawn. I often felt like I was left hanging and given no real direction to go in.
ReplyDeleteI really like your examples of ethical issues to discuss. Particularly the censorship and financial questions that you ask. I think that these are questions that stem from probable situations. I am hoping that we will be able to discuss some of these in class!
I also agree with previous comments about the Lenker article! It just felt weak. Besides the dangerous questions feeling outdated, Lenker didn't give any hard conclusions about how to handle them. While I mostly considered ethics from the viewpoint of working at a reference desk, I really like your examples. Reading through them, they seem like much more likely situations and questions that will come up when we're all out in real libraries. As much as I'd like to read books and do storytime and plan events all day, the true picture of librarianship includes the not-always-as-pleasant situations that you pointed out.
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