Ethical Addresses
9 February 2024
As a so-called “baby” librarian in the process of becoming a degree-holding, capital L-Librarian, there appears to be an untold number of sticky scenarios lying across the horizon of my career, from clarifying misunderstandings with patrons and other staff to navigating quandaries involving government officials or software vendors, or even possibly deescalating if not full-on navigating life-threatening situations. The prospect of being on the periphery these situations on their own is already daunting; having to lead and provide guidance on how to manage these scenarios sounds liable to permanently fray my nerves.
Fortunately, all of these situations have been experienced and understood enough to be charted out by others’ guidance. I might not have the knowhow of years of experience, yet guidance can still be found through written philosophies of ethics, which, regardless of definition, are ultimately intended to provide a foundation of principles that can the question “What should I do?” across multiple situations (Moran & Morner, 2018, p. 362).
You are the reference librarian on duty at a large public library. Two teenagers come in and ask for instructions on how to build a car bomb.
Although both of the scenarios following the current are situations that many are liable to encounter, this initial hypothetical is one that seems largely implausible. Two minors, committed to an extreme course of action that will undoubtedly lock the course of their lives on an incredibly precarious track, visiting a public space and openly asking a public employee for help with their crime—thereby making their intentions known not just to said librarian, but to anyone who can hear, which will almost certainly spread to the entirety of staff in the branch at the time, further exacerbating tension and suspicion against them that would lead to a confrontation, if not an accosting then by law enforcement.
Nonetheless, proceeding as if this is a genuine inquiry and not just a teenage jest: the very first principle of the ALA Code of Ethics (2017) is “[providing] the highest level of service to all library users through […] courteous responses to all requests.” As such, the path of least resistance would be to respond to the teenagers’ question with the same regard as any other customer and answer further inquiries as normal—as normal as such a conversation could be, for a reference interview that is nigh-guaranteed to be inconclusive. Keyword and subject searches for “car bomb” returns fiction and nonfiction about the political circumstances and experiences of those caught in bombings from public library OPACs if anything at all, and broadening the search through just “bomb” merely broadens the array of experiences. Conventional searches through internet search engines are similarly unclear if not confoundingly so, as the vast majority of results pertain to an Irish alcoholic beverage. Only through searching “how to make a car bomb” on DuckDuckGo was I able to bring up a how-to-guide for creating a car ignition bomb on the third page of results—one that provides only the sparsest of instructions, and ends by warning the viewer that making a car ignition bomb could result in serious consequences (Mayer, 2022). Effortless access to bomb-making information through the internet has been a recurring flashpoint in legal debates about internet content (“Bomb-making instructions on the Internet,” 2023), and the sparse results are likely a result of search providers scrubbing their platforms of offending information.
Upon the incredibly rare chance that a librarian uncovers genuine instructions on building a bomb, however, presents the true ethical quandary of this situation. Due to the likely abundance of caution on the topic, there is almost nothing published on the matter of providing access to knowledge that could enable violence, save a ruminative editorial by Jesi Buell (2014). Spurred by an encounter with a “disgruntled, nervous-looking young [man] wearing combat gear in [a] major metropolitan transit hub,” (p. 268) Buell discusses how their initial assumptions that this anxiety that a person seemingly prone to violence that proves to be completely harmless might manifest in a reference interview, specifically when one involves “information that [makes them] uncomfortable—the type of information that can potentially promote violence” (p. 269). Somewhat ironically, Buell’s overall position is unclear—while they wish for “a safe environment and to not be a part of anything where the result is people being hurt,” they believe it unjust to make a distinction between what kinds of knowledge is dangerous to provide to patrons, emphasizing “it is not [their] job to delineate the lines of appropriate research and thinking” (p. 270). And while I do think both of Buel’s sentiments have merit, I feel as if the former much outweighs the latter—even if I were to come across substantial information about bomb-building, I would take the nigh-empty results from the catalog and inconclusiveness of web searches as gesturing towards the lack of information any public library could provide on the topic. Hopefully, informing these patrons as such would lead to a cordial end to the interaction, and for a deferment from their search.
You are the director at a small academic library. An automation vendor offers to take you out for dinner at a national meeting.
Whether or not I’d accept any invitations or other gifts from a vendor depends on the library’s relationship with said vendor—but in most cases, I would completely decline any endowments. No matter how integral to operations one might be, a library’s relationship with any and all vendors are commercial relationships “complete with contractual obligations” (Perego, 2022). The sixth principle of the ALA’s Code of Ethics holds us to “not advance private interests at the expense of […] our employing institutions,” (ALA, 2017), and as the individual with some of the greatest leverage in organizational decision-making, accepting an opportunity from a vendor that benefits solely myself in the midst of a business relationship will appear to be a conflict of interest at a minimum (Ryan, 2010). For academic libraries in particular, these concerns are much multiplied, considering that access to scholarly information is entirely mediated by outside forces:
Academic libraries do not simply buy a book and lend it. Instead, they license content from vendors who create and administer the platforms through which users seek, contextualize, and consume information. As a result, the vast majority of the library user’s information experience is controlled by for-profit systems—not the library itself—designed to operate with hegemonic information structures like the Library of Congress classification system and authority control (Bernhardt & Neel, 2022).With such a heavy reliance on the machinations of third-party vendors, any and all interactions with vendors and their representatives should be regarded as possibly public encounters, so as to keep all chances of ethical conflicts to a minimum.
Patrons in your inner-city public library have complained about the homeless people taking baths in the library restroom and sleeping on the furniture.
Even moreso than the preceding scenario, a response to this is heavily dependent on the circumstances surrounding the library. How large are the spaces devoted to patron usage? How is the furniture is distributed throughout the branch? What local resources are available to homeless people outside of the library? If changes to be made, would it have too averse an effect on the unhoused? Would people of means’ activities in the library be significantly affected as well? Though the people making complaints are presumably those who don’t rely on the library facilities as heavily, implementing a punitive policy such as locking the restrooms and requiring patrons request a key would affect (if not inconvenience) their use of the branch nonetheless.
Coincidentally, homeless patrons sleeping on and moving furniture to suit their needs is a concern that has been addressed at my current place of work. At 39,700 square-feet, there is plentiful seating distributed across the branch’s four floors, along with two devoted quiet reading rooms on the first and third floors (Central Rappahannock Regional Library, n.d.). These rooms are frequently occupied by unhoused patrons no matter the time of day or season, many who are regular visitors that know and dutifully follow to branch rules, though missteps from newer or long-returned patrons always tend to recur after some time. A minor flashpoint of these incidents occurred months ago, when a group of patrons repeatedly shifted the layout of furniture in both rooms to suit their needs over the course of a couple weeks. In response to this, additional signs were placed in the quiet reading rooms informing patrons that the furniture should not be moved from their intended places—and this quickly reduced the volume of these occurrences.
This is, I think, the best response to the original scenario. The signs clearly state what the expectations of using the library space are, conveys to any upset patrons that their complaints are known and are being addressed, and provides an easy reference for staff to gesture towards for further violations. As the approximately 76% of the unhoused population in CRRL’s region are White or African American (Fredericksburg Regional Continuum of Care, 2023), signs that are only in English will likely suffice. In regions with a greater concentration of minorities and foreign-born unhoused populations, such as New York City (coalition for the homeless, 2023), these notices and other forms of signage throughout the branch would have to include other languages to ensure expectations are easily established.
References
American Library Association. (2017, May 19). Professional ethics. Retrieved February 4, 2024, from http://www.ala.org/tools/ethics
Bernhardt, L. M. & Neel, B. (2022). When the vendor becomes the library: Systems, values, and the commodification of social justice in academic collections. Journal of Information Ethics, 31(2), 26-37.
Buell, J. (2014). Murder on the Adirondack Express: Knowledge, violence, and the reference desk. Reference Librarian, 55(3), 268–271. https://doi.org/10.1080/02763877.2014.911046
Central Rappahannock Regional Library. (n.d.) Fredericksburg branch. Retrieved February 8, 2024, from: https://www.librarypoint.org/locations/HDQTRS/
coalition for the homeless. (2023, December). New York City homelessness: The basic facts. https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/NYC-Homelessness-Fact-Sheet-11-2023_citations.pdf
Fredericksburg Regional Continuum of Care. (2023). Winter 2023 Point-In-Time count report. https://www.fredericksburgcoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2023-PIT-Count-Report-2.pdf
Mayer, K. (2022, October 8). How to make a car ignition bomb. Retrieved February 4, 2024, from DynoCar: https://www.dynocar.org/how-to-make-a-car-ignition-bomb/
Moran, B. B. & Morner, C. J. (2018). Library and information center management (9th ed.). Libraries Unlimited.
Perego, M. (2022). Guardrails for managing vendor relationships. Public Management, 104(10), 2-4. http://proxy.lib.odu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/guardrails-managing-vendor-relationships/docview/2848497008/se-2
Ryan, M. L. (2010). Does it really matter who's paying for dinner? Journal of the Medical Library Association, 98(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.98.1.001
Bomb-making instructions on the Internet. (2023, November 23). In Wikipedia. Retrieved February 4, 2024, from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bomb-making_instructions_on_the_Internet&oldid=1186450696