Sticky Situations

September 20-26

Ethical Issues in Reference Services

This week in class we had a challenging discussion about the rights and responsibilities of librarians held under the Library Code of Ethics and the Bill of Rights. Both of these documents allow the user to have free and private access to information and services in the library without judgement passed by the library staff. They also advocate providing wide and diverse view points about issues and interest.

We discussed several difficult situations where these ideals could be violated such as:
1. Helping a student find a book about ways to commit suicide. Is it your right to discuss this query with her parents or teachers or ask her why she wants to find this book? This was a difficult situation because to do so would violate her library rights of confidential access to information. My first thought was why even have this book in your library but that would be considered a form of censorship if this book was used for an academic or interest purpose. Even held by these ethical standards I do not think I could feel right about not following up in some way with this student afterwards.
2. A student ask about finding chemicals that can blow up a house or building. This was similar to the Unibomber suspect who used a local public library and reference services with librarians many times for resources for his attacks. I was interested to find out that the librarians did not pass any judgement on his request but as far as my teacher knew simply helped his request and moved along. According to these ethical standards it was not their position to get involved in personal opnioons or expressions. This would be a horrible position to be in as well because you may be somehow helping this person hurt others.

This week a Missouri School District Board voted to censor access to two books because a townsmember complained they had ideas contrary to the Bible. This person does not have any students at this school. The Board restricted access to 2 of the 3 books by having to have parental permission to check them out. This access only came after an appeal from groups after the books were origanally bannded from the libraries. The Board was quoted in the OA News as saying " we were happy to put the responsibility back on the parents".


I just bet you were. In that case you do not have to make a stand either way. This decision may seem like a victory for free access but does it really fulfill the ethical standards of the Library Bill of Rights or just play push the blame somewhere else? Parents should be a moral compass and first teacher for their children but making the librarian be the warden of those morals is a difficult situation.

As a Christian these are difficult issues for me to face as a teacher and librarian. Even in my classroom I carefully choose books and resources that encourage wholesome values to shepherd a child's heart. I do not try to hide them from the world but to give share a light so that their view of the world and what they want to read and pursue are changed. My Christian world view does not make me want to limit or judge what I read but it gives me a framework for evaluating the information I find as I filter everything through the scriptures. At heart this is at heart a spiritual issue that shows the lostness of this world that we take such authority and influence from the creations of words and men instead of the WORD and the Creator of all.