What do you think are the 3 main ethical problems in your area of librarianship?

1. 1. In university libraries, we face administrations who have become more interested in measures of “business” performance than the university’s teaching and scholarship missions. Librarians must act as keepers and defenders of scholarly values in this corporatized culture.
   2. In systems librarianship, we must make a concerted effort to alert administrators and the general public that despite the hype, there’s still no such thing as an archival digital medium, and yet libraries are throwing away print and microform copies and going all-online as fast as they can. We are already losing knowledge in this way and are in danger of losing more. We shouldn’t just ride this wave of misplaced enthusiasm for tech and “cost efficiency.” We have a responsibility to sound a serious caution about throwing away all the knowledge on paper.
   3. Most University students perceive the larger society’s values and have internalized them. They therefore approach higher education with a careerist mentality, interested mainly in the monetary payoff the college degree promises. They haven’t been exposed to anything resembling a system of scholarly values. The very real prospect of entire cohorts of college graduates proceeding into the world with no idea what’s meant by “research” bodes ill for human civilization. The academic librarian therefore is ethically compelled to reach all students with a system of scholarly values and practices. This is in direct opposition to the current trend in librarianship, where the language paints librarians as personnel who teach students how to be wise “information consumers.” (see for example the most recent Information Literacy standards to emerge from the profession.) Research as shopping is a debased and false model of higher education, and librarians are in the best position to resist it.

In this, the Information Age, what do you think might be a major ethical problem/opportunity for the entire profession?

• Globally networked digital media has the potential to empower the people of the world. But we must remember that it is only a tool, and contrary to publicity, it does not solve problems or think for you, and so the people must acquire the *culture* of using it meaningfully on behalf of their own interests. This knowledge is the province of the arts and humanities. So: ironically, in the information age, the academic systems librarian is in a special position to lobby for humanities education.

Can you describe a recent professional situation that you experienced that you thought might be unethical or had the potential to become ethically gray?

• My supervisor assigned me several substantial tasks that were not the System Librarian’s “territory” but were usually the responsibility of personnel in other units, not even the library. Ethically, this is a subtle problem, but it is basic, and routinely ignoring it produces far ranging consequences in terms of morale and goodwill among personnel and units. Assuming that the Dean had sound reasons for assigning me these tasks and had cleared it with the responsible parties, and I proceeded to do them, only to find out otherwise. So it’s important to respect the boundaries represented by job descriptions and organizational charts. But I also take very seriously my ethical obligation to undertake “other duties as assigned,” and if something needs doing for the good of the institution, and it will not get done otherwise, I believe in rolling up my sleeves and doing it without complaining that it’s “not in my job description.” These two obligations can come into conflict, producing an ethical gray area with which I’m all too familiar. Careful judgement and caution are required whenever crossing organizational lines.

If you could create one program on ethics and libraries, to be delivered at a national conference, what would it be about?

• The disappearance of scholarly humanitarian values in the official language of our profession in favor of terminology adopted from tech and business sectors.

Is the ALA code of Ethics (or the appropriate relevant ethical code) displayed at your workplace area, and if so, where?

• I’ve never seen it posted or heard it discussed in 20 years of academic library work. Before that, I spent years as a social worker, a profession with an absolutely crucial code of ethics, which I also never saw displayed or heard discussed among professionals in any human services agency.

What ONE piece of advice would you give a new librarian or information professional about ethics and the workplace?

• Champion public programs in the arts and humanities, and devote your practice to the original values of liberal arts education on behalf of all people, especially the least privileged. Resist the corporate financialization of higher education and the pretense that information technology is any substitute for knowledge.

What ONE thing do you think should be taught in a course on ethics and libraries or information ethics?

• A broad outline of ethical positions that have emerged throughout the history of philosophy, and how they bear materially and concretely on librarianship practice.

Does your library have a policy regarding requests by law enforcement for patron records? What are the requirements?

• We do not cooperate with such requests. I personally led the policy discussion on this in terms of automatic “anonymization” of borrowing records in the system. For ethical reasons, we choose to anonymize closed loan records nightly so as to minimize patron exposure to unconstitutional or criminal exploitation of their data.

What kind of practices has your library implemented for patron privacy?

• Anonymization of closed loan records as above. Also, we have scrupulously excluded any positively identifying and therefore sensitive information (like Social Security Number) from any patron record that the library handles. This is crucial. Library systems and University systems in general are simply not secure enough to trust with personally identifying information. So I think national higher education privacy standards dictate that we not store it there.

Does your library offer tutorials, guides, or other instruction to patrons on how they can better protect their privacy, whether in the library or elsewhere?

• I haven’t seen it. It’s a great idea.