A young woman, approximately 35 years old, walks into the hospital library and scans the library shelves to hopefully find information in solving her difficult condition of infertility. She sees and greets the health librarian at the front desk who greets her and asks, “Hello Miss. What information may I help you find today?” The woman looks around to see if other non-medical information users are in the library. She quietly tells the librarian her infertility issue and asks if there is any information on the health implications of egg donation and the possible chances of achieving conception with this method.
A teenage girl walks into the hospital library looking anxiously around the library and at the online catalogs and computers. The girl, noticing that the computers are all being utilized by medical personnel, starts to get fidgety. The medical librarian noticing the anxious behavior, calls to her and asks, “May I help you with anything, Miss?” The girl starts to stammer, but manages to quietly tell the librarian. “I’m becoming sexually active with my boyfriend, but I need information about effective birth control methods.”
A casually, but neatly dressed 12 year old boy saunters into the hospital library carrying his school backpack. The librarian notices and smiles at him and yet surprised as she doesn’t see many preteen youth visit or utilize the health library. Unlike the previous visitors, this boy is the least self-conscious. He walks up to the librarian and says, “Hi! I was wondering if you have books on tattoos.” The librarian is surprised, but remains calm. “Did you want a book with pictures of tattoos or a book that talks about tattoos and how to stay healthy while having one?” The boy stops to think and decides if he wants to tell the librarian that he wants to get one because his friends have tattoos. “I think the book that talks about tattoo health would be helpful. My parents are okay with the idea of a nice tattoo graphic, but they are also concerned that I might be too young to have one for health reasons.” The librarian nods at him saying, “I can understand their concern, but I’ll show you two books that we have on tattoos and you can read and discuss them with your parents and make your decision from there.”
All of these scenarios involve sensitive, delicate and controversial issues concerning the information seekers’ needs. “Moral dilemmas are a frequent and seemingly unavoidable aspect of librarianship.” (Buchanan, Henderson, & Hauptman, 2009). Fortunately for these fictional information seekers/users, the health information professional was able to serve them with diligence, sensitivity, and understanding of their plights. However, while there are many professional health and other librarians who carry out their service and reference duties with expertise and finesse in dealing with sensitive and controversial situations, there are librarians in all information sectors who have difficulty, if not reluctance in putting their moral and personal biases aside while assisting information seekers.
According to the article, Christian Librarians and the ALA Ethics of the Library Bill of Rights (Kaihoi, S. 2015), an online study was conducted to seek opinions of librarians who self-identified as Christians of several denominations regarding the ALA’s ethical standards as embodied in the Library Bill of Rights (LBR). While 72% of the respondents in the majority supported the LBR overall, 40% of respondents differed in certain ethical areas primarily in material content such as pornography and harmful materials, etc. and believe that these “could or should be limited” especially in regard to children. According to Kaihoi, these statistics and statements “seem to suggest that many Christian librarians do sometimes perceive a need to place of the value of defending what they perceive to be true and right above the call to remain professionally impartial about certain kinds of contents.”
While I believe that these librarians’ beliefs in defending their Christian moral values and truths is commendable, I also believe that the ethics of the ALA, LBR, and the MLA codes of ethics all encourage and support the value of discernment and critical thinking in the materials that patrons and health information consumers read and watch.
The ALA, in Article II “upholds the principles of intellectual freedom and resists all efforts to censor library resources.” The LBR in Articles I-IV support the provision that “books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves”, “presenting all points of view on current and historical issues”, “resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas” and “should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility provide information and enlightenment.” The MLA Code also supports these ethics as it “promotes access to health information for all and creates and maintains conditions of freedom of inquiry, thought, and expression that facilitate informed health care decisions” in its Society subheading.
References:
American Library Association. Code of ethics of the American Library Association, available at http://www.ala.org/advocacy/proethics/codeofethics/codeethics
American Library Association. Library Bill of Rights, available at http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill
Kaihoi, Scott. “Christian Librarians and the ethics of the library bill of rights,” Theological Librarianship, v.8 no. 1, March, 2015
Medical Library Association. Code of Ethics for Health Sciences Librarianship, available at http://www.mlanet.org/p/cm/ld/fid=160
Wilkinson, Lane. Principlism and the ethics of librarianship. The Reference Librarian, v.55: 1-25, 2014 Taylor and Francis.