Stephen Humeston

LIS 407-OL Summer 2015

Rex Krajewski
Ethics Reflection Paper
Scenario: A couple of teenage boys have been grouped around a computer in the [public]
library, talking and laughing. After a while, they come to the desk and say that they've
been trying to search for information about how people make crystal meth from cold
medicines like Sudafed, but the filter on the computer has been blocking them. They want
you to help them find the information and/or disable the filter from the public computer.

This scenario immediately brings to mind the librarians professional goal of supporting
the free flow of information. The American Library Associations (ALA) Code of Ethics clearly
lists these principles of openness. Article II of the Code states that librarians resist all efforts to
censor library resources (Bopp and Smith 33). The third article of the ALAs Library Bill of
Rights also states that libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their
responsibility to provide information and enlightenment (43). According to the noted
intellectual freedom advocate John Swan, the ethical imperative for a librarian is the delivery of
the information and not necessarily its content (Weiner 161). Discussing this very issue of
limiting access to Internet resources, David McMenemy et al. argue that such policies and
software are at [their] root . . . an attack on equity of access, since it defines some information
as inappropriate (91). The authors later even go so far as to rhetorically question whether such a
judgement of unsuitability could be made in the pluralistic milieu of the 21st century.
However it must also be stated that other voices within the library community oppose the
positions of Swan, McMenemy, and the ALA, at least in certain circumstances. After conducting
an experiment in 1976 seeking to gain access to bomb-making instructions, librarian and ethicist
Robert Hauptman spent his entire subsequent career maintaining the importance of impartiality
and openness in librarianship while still aggressively condemning what he saw as the abjuration
of personal responsibility and highly unprofessional act of potentially enabling crime or other
damaging behavior in the name of . . . a dubious commitment to information dissemination.
(Professional Responsibility 327). Hauptman offered the following advice addressing first
principles of librarianship ethics whether in print or electronic form: [If] there is a strong hint
that the tendered information may lead to harm or even catastrophe, the librarian should hesitate,

balk, or even refuse to help, depending on the specific case. And again, if librarians suspect
that the information will be misused, they should proceed with caution. If they know that
detriment is ensured, they must forestall it (Ethical Challenges 44).
The voices cited above are admittedly some of the more partisan members of the
discipline but moderate figures can also be found. Perhaps most applicable of these would be
Robert C. Dowd and his parallel study to Hauptmans. In 1989 Dowd replicated Hauptmans
experiment, substituting potential terrorism with that of cocaine abuse. While Dowd found
similar results in his librarian responses, his ethical conclusions fell more in support of openness,
reasoning that reading about a topic is not the same as inevitably doing it (483).
Therefore it can be clearly seen that there is no full consensus on the issue within the
practicing librarian community, even in the presence of professional codes; yet guiding
frameworks do emerge. Namely that openness should be pursued where possible, that
information itself is not ethically neutral and librarians should consider their own personal
responsibility in a broader context rather than merely providing an answer to a query, and that
knowledge of a topic is not tantamount to enacting it.
Beyond personal responsibility and professional philosophy there are legal and
organizational structures which come into play with our given situation. It is likely that federal
law will have some recourse to the librarys policies as a public institution. The Childrens
Internet Protection Act (CIPA) of 2000 mandates that software filters be installed on library
computers in order to prevent access by minors to inappropriate matter on the Internet and
World Wide Web and to design policies and implement measures designed to restrict minors'
access to materials harmful to minors (Helms 22). It would seem likely then that the public
library in question might also have its own locally-determined policies regarding explicitly
illegal activities, at the very least if only to comply with CIPA.
Now that all the philosophical, professional, legal, and organizational context has been
established I can answer the initial question of What would I do? In the simplest terms, I
would politely note that the filters are in place because of library policy and that I didnt have the
authority to override them. This is easily explained without patronizing the teenagers, it
maintains fidelity to the professional expectations of my institution, and in the event that the
patrons did have illegal intent, it would be in compliance with the letter and spirit of the CIPA
laws. Now, if they persisted and wanted additional help in finding the information I would
2

probably do two or three things concurrently. First, I would try to steer them toward any
information housed within our print collection. Ostensibly the print collection would have been
vetted and selected in some capacity by the collection development librarian/team/department
and therefore would be more of a known quantity. (I think if the library deliberately housed
Illegal Drug Dealing and Manufacture for Dummies, there would be a larger concern at hand.)
Secondly, if no immediate resources were within the librarys holdings, I could offer to do some
follow-up research to find something that could be helpful. This could also accomplish several
things at once: It would give me an opportunity to consult with other librarians or my supervisor
as to the ethics of the situation and it could allow me to find resources which could provide
accurate and useful information to a curious observer which didnt necessarily offer step-by-step
instructions for carrying it out. Finally, following in the line of Hauptmans advice and allowing
for Dowds benefit of doubt, I would do my best to intuit the context and motivation behind the
patrons curiosity as far as possible, even asking directly if necessary. In this case the ethics
surrounding patron privacy would be centered on determining whether or not I would be party to
enabling illegal activity and not about mitigating the risk of frightening away a patron in genuine
need of help. It is true that there are some possible situations where a teenager might be looking
for that information with innocent intent, but the boisterous group dynamics described in the
scenario above do not lend themselves to that kind of context. Further explanation could dispel
the ambiguity and such confirmation would be necessary and appropriate in the light of such
content.
In summary, the library policy on Internet filters is set and not up for debate from my
position. As for further involvement regarding the provision of information, I see three
possibilities: either the teens are harmlessly joking and their entertainment has been frustrated by
the librarys filters and protective policies, the teens are seeking something illegal and were
prevented precisely as the policies intended, or the teens have a legitimate need for the
information. As such, by tentative denial and further inquiry, only the third scenario yields the
possibility of a professional failure and it can easily be mitigated through the follow-up
conversation and engagement. If, however, the second scenario is the case then a significant
breach has been made on the ethical, professional and legal levels.

Works Cited

Bopp, Richard R. and Linda C. Smith. Reference and Information Services: An Introduction.
Santa Barbara, Calif: Libraries Unlimited, 2011.

Dowd, Robert C. "I Want Find Out How to Freebase Cocaine (Or) Yet Another Unobtrusive
Test of Reference Performance." The Reference Librarian 11.25/26 (1990): 483-493.

Hauptman, Robert. Ethical Challenges in Librarianship. Phoenix: Oryx, 1988.

Hauptman, Robert. "Professional Responsibility Reconsidered." Rq 35 (1996): 327-329.

Helms, Cathy Harris. "Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) And Public Libraries." Georgia
Library Quarterly 41.1 (2004): 21-26.

McMenemy, David, Alan Poulter, and Paul F. Burton. A Handbook of Ethical Practice: A
Practical Guide to Dealing With Ethical Issues in Information and Library Work.
Oxford: Chandos, 2007.
Wiener, Paul B. On My Mind: Mad Bombers and Ethical Librarians: A Dialogue with Robert
Hauptman and John Swan. Catholic Library World, 58.4 (January/February 1987): 161163.