Dawn Scheidel Bish

LIS 666

Reflections Paper

Reflections Paper LIS 666 Dr. J. Hersberger

I start my reflections paper with two quotes from the ALA website about intellectual freedom and censorship. These two issues are important to the ethical practice of librarianship and something that all librarians need to remember and be conscience of when dealing with patrons in the library, whether that person is an adult, student, child, special needs person or homeless person.
Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. Intellectual freedom is the basis for our democratic system. We expect our people to be selfgovernors. But to do so responsibly, our citizenry must be well-informed. Libraries provide the ideas and information, in a variety of formats, to allow people to inform themselves. Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas. (American Library Association)

A week ago I had an encounter with a reference librarian at Jackson Library. I was doing a bibliography on Autism and was looking for information on the Dewey Decimal System and what the actual codes meant after the decimal point for some of the books I was accessing. I had looked online and found that in order to find the information I needed the username and password for a website. I had this information at home but not readily available to me as I took cataloguing last semester. The conversation went something like this:
Me: I need some information on Dewey Decimal System numbers and what the numbers mean after the decimal point. The reason I need this information is that the professor was requiring this information for my paper RL: I am sorry, but it is unethical for me to provide you with this information. Me: Unethical, how so? I am asking for the username and password, not for you to do my work for me. I have the information at home; I was hoping that the reference desk would have the information for me here so I could finish my paper. RL: Again, I make it my policy not to help LIS students with their projects because I had to take those classes myself and if I help you it would be unethical. The information can be found online.

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Reflections Paper

Me: I know it could be found online. I had the website but not the information to access this information. RL: I am sorry, it would be unethical for me to help you Me: Okay, I will just wait until I get home to find the information.

I was quite perplexed by the encounter and had a difficult time getting back to what I was working on. It is still bothering me as I am writing about this in my reflections paper for ethics and information. I give this as an example and would like to look at this more closely to determine if this was indeed unethical to provide me with the user name and password to the website that I needed. Velazquez, et al provides one with five questions to determine if an issue/problem/law is ethical. These questions are as follows:
What benefits and what harms will each course of action produce, and which alternative will lead to the best overall consequences? What moral rights do the affected parties have, and which course of action best respects those rights? Which course of action treats everyone the same, except where there is a morally justifiable reason not to, and does not show favoritism or discrimination? Which course of action advances the common good? Which course of action develops moral virtues? (Velasques)

The first question is: What benefits and what harm will each course of action produce and which alternative will lead to the best overall consequence? By not providing the information I needed, I was put out by it did not devastate the overall consequences. Yes, I would have to wait to finish my paper, but so what? The second question is: What moral rights do the affected parties have, and which course of action best respects those rights? According to the ALA above, I have the right to both seek and receive information without restrictions. So in the case could be made that the reference librarian was not following the definition of intellectual freedom by not providing me with the information that I sought. The third question is: Which course of action treats everyone the same, except where there is a morally justifiable reason not to, and does not show favoritism or discrimination? The reference librarian made it a point of saying to me that she did not provide help specifically to LIS students, so this could be shown as a case of discrimination. If she had told me that she did not provide that information to anyone or did not have this information then it would not show discrimination. The fourth question is: Which course of action advances the common good? I do not believe that in a single case like mine, it affects the common good at all. I am only one person working towards my MLIS. However, if she indeed makes it a point to not help LIS students, does this promote the common good? I would think not. By denying me
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and other LIS students information, the reference librarian is denying the opportunity to help students learn the information that is needed to be a good librarian. Isnt part of being a librarian providing information to others and to create critical thinkers? The fifth question is: Which course of action develops moral virtues? By stating that she would not provide me with the information that I sought, was she trying to develop my moral virtues? The only answer I can come up with is that I am a mature, professional graduate student who has a moral belief system ingrained into my attitude towards others and I do not believe that either course of action would have changed my moral values. This was just one example of how a librarians attitudes and values affect others. All of us studying LIS must remember to place our attitude, stance and mindset about subjects at the door when we enter the library. In the words of ALA, It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored (American Library Association). In the end, another reference librarian came in after the first librarian left and voluntarily provided me with the information that I sought (username and password to OCLC). I learned a great deal in this class and had a good time while learning. One of the things that resonated for me was the information I found out about on CIPA while I was writing my papers. The Childrens Internet Protection Act was put into place to protect children from materials that are not suitable for minors. The ALA and ACLU sued as this was believed to be against First Amendment Rights of free speech. The decision was appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 2003 with the court upholding the law. The Solicitor General had argued that CIPA would not block constitutionally allowed speech because the filter could be unblocked by an authorized person in the library at the request of an adult. The Court agreed with this argument and stated that filtered sites could be either unblocked or the filter disabled with ease at the request of an adult patron. However, while doing an action research project on filtering software, Cyndi Atwell and I interviewed ten librarians and found that not one librarian was able to unblock a filter without going through the IT department, at times taking up to three days for resolution. This information troubles me, as the Supreme Court is saying that it is easy to disable the filters, yet not one librarian was able to disable a filter. Does this not then make CIPA unconstitutional? CIPA is placed on all computers in the library of schools and public libraries, receiving certain government funding. This includes computers for adult access only. So, if the librarian is unable to disable the filter does this not mean that the person seeking the information is unable to access the information needed. Is this not a freedom of speech issue?
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Dawn Scheidel Bish

LIS 666

Reflections Paper

Another issue that resonated with me also involves CIPA and filtering software. There are still many children that only have access to the internet at school or at the library. This means that these children only have access to filtered websites and are at a disadvantage to children that have access to the internet at home that does not have filters. The problem with this is that the children without filtering have the ability to learn more from the internet because they have access to sites that are blocked by filtering. For example, one school system reported that The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights were blocked. Other sites blocked were religious sites, the Bible and the Book of Mormon (Jaeger P. T., March 2009). This causes a gap in learning for those who do not have internet access at home. Finally, I was quite taken by a recent AT&T commercial that brought everything together for me. The commercial takes place at a spelling bee where they have not eliminated any of the contestants. The ending of the commercial just succinctly says: Access to the internet makes us smarter. What will happen when everyone has it? Lets find out. I believe that the commercial is a great comment on the necessity of internet access for all especially for children (and I have to add here, less filtered access). You can find the commercial on You Tube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESMwyVxapck

Bibliography
American Library Association. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2010, from Intellectual Freedom Questions and Answers: http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/basics/ifcensorshipqanda.cfm Children's Internet Protection Act Study of Technology Protection Measures. (2003, August). www.ntia.doc.gov. Retrieved February 7, 2010, from National Telecommunicaitons and Information Administration: http://ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/ntiageneral/cipa2003/cipareport Jaeger, P. T. (March 2009). One Law with Two Outcomes: Comparing the Implementation of CIPA in Public Libraries and Schools. Information Technoloby and Libraries , 6-14. Velasques, M. A. (n.d.). Thinking Ethically: A Framework for Moral Decision Making. Retrieved February 2010, from Marllula Center for Applied Ethics: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publicatins/iie/v7n1/thinking.html

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