Information Ethics: SLA's Global Conversation

Info Ethics on Wikipedia

Information ethics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Information ethics is the field that investigates the ethical issues arising from the development and application of information technologies. It provides a critical framework for considering moral issues concerning informational privacy, moral agency (e.g. whether artificial agents may be moral), new environmental issues (especially how agents should one behave in the infosphere), problems arising from the life-cycle (creation, collection, recording, distribution, processing, etc.) of information (especially ownership and copyright, digital divide). Information Ethics is therefore strictly related to the fields of computer ethics ^[1] and the philosophy of information.

What are your thoughts on the article? Anything that you would like to change here based on your recent Town Hall meetings and conversations on this issue?

What would you do?

This came to me as a question today- wondering what all you Ethics Ambassadors would have to say about this situation- please post comments for discussion!

You're a librarian in a large educational institution dealing with both undergraduate and graduate students; You know a colleague is having some difficulties- particularly with substance abuse.  The colleague of course is in denial; You realize your colleague is interacting with students, who frequently aren't even 18 yet- technically juveniles.

This scenario goes on; The colleague, unfortunately, expires due to a drug overdose; It's reported in the school newspaper and is particularly heart-wrenching and embarassing all at once. What is my ethical obligation in this instance- if anything? Could we, as co-workers have done something? Intervened?

What a Librarian Can Teach You About Privacy (and ETHICS!)

Check out this story on privacy in Computerworld magazine...

What a librarian can teach you about privacy  April 14, 2008 (Computerworld)

"Cindy Hill, past president of the Special Libraries Association in Alexandria, Va., and now vice president of information management services at Outsell Inc., a market research firm in Burlingame, Calif., says virtually every librarian will comply with a court order or subpoena, where a specific suspect has been identified by law enforcement agencies."

The story does a great job of positioning librarians as ethical professionals who are watchdogs of privacy as well as being TOTALLY AWESOME!

Should you get the bug after reading the article, and want to leave a comment to the story- please DO! I did, it isn't hard, and people actually read them, in the 2.0 world, it seems that comments are as good as GOLD!

Basically, this is a great opportunity for some guerrilla PR on this issue. Lets start spreading the word about Info Pros and Information Ethics wherever we can.

Remember, this is a grassroots PR initiative and its success will be built on the small things that all of us are doing here and there to support the message: SLA members, librarians, and info pros are THE source within organizations for ethical compliance when it comes to the gathering, sharing and use of information!

Survey on CI Ethics

Over the Line: Global Benchmark Survey on CI Ethical and Legal Issues, a survey being conducted by CI firm Fuld & Company, looks to be a good resource for EAs and for the information industry.

There are plenty of questions which may be useful to you as you frame your discussions about this topic, and the survey tool provides rough results and responses to the participant when the questionairre is completed.

This survey request was forwarded to me by John Latham in the HQ Info Center... It looks like SLA is moving in the right direction..  From the Fuld & Co website:

Why is this survey important?

Why are we conducting a survey on ethics? And why now? After all, Fuld & Company presented ethical guidelines to the industry in the mid-1980s, participated in helping SCIP respond to the aftermath of the US-passed Economic Espionage Act in 1996, and conducted the first global survey on the subject in 2001. So, what is really new? What has changed?

For one, the problem has not gone away. Companies still cross the ethical-legal line, perhaps more now than ever. Second, it appears that business pressures — partly the result of truly global competition — have exacerbated the problem.

So... go take the survey! See what the results say... Is there anything that surprises you?  Share your thoughts!

Ethics 101- 6 March 2:00 EST

Just a reminder- or for those that are new EAs and don't yet know about this program- its happening tomorrow!

If you want to participate in this program LIVE but do not yet have the information, please contact me at: cara@sla.org and I will send it to you right away!

Otherwise- this 90 min virtual program will be recorded as both a stand- alone seminar for use by EAs during their Town Hall Meetings... AND It will also be a recorded webinar for use by members on interested in learning about ethics on their own.

Hope to virtually see many of you tomorrow! If you haven't registered but are planning to attend, please register now!

Why Info Ethics and What's Next - Remarks at Leadership Summit

Welcome EAs!

We couldn't be more excited that you've volunteered to take part in this grass-roots effort to gather member feedback that will help SLA to craft workable guidelines for information ethics.  This is your chance to have a say in something that will affect (and we hope help) support you as these issues arise. Ultimately we see it as an opportunity to showcase our value within our organizations.

Cara has done a great job of giving you a detailed back story (complete with documents submitted to the SLA Board.)  We thought you might also appreciate reading remarks I presented to your unit leaders at the SLA Leadership Summit in January.  It's a quick and easy way to get a feel for how all this came about and where we hope to go next - with your help, of course!

WHY INFORMATION ETHICS & WHAT'S NEXT - Remarks at 2008 Leadership Summit

First, a little back story
When the Public Relations Advisory Council recommended a hiatus for International Special Librarians Day, it was with an eye toward creating something that might better grab the attention of the global business community.  While hosting activities in our respective libraries can be a fun way to garner attention, we wanted to create something that would demonstrate our role as both stewards and stakeholders in the success of our organizations.

We also wanted to distinguish ourselves from ALA and the traditional librarian stereotype.  Special librarians are some of the most innovative and critical resources an organization has, whether corporate, non-profit academic or government.   No matter how this initiative evolved, we wanted SLA to own it.

So why Information Ethics?
Under the leadership of previous committee chairs Cindy Romaine and Kate Arnold the Council began to craft the idea of a global event devoted to showcasing how and why special librarians are the best knowledge managers of Information Ethics in their organizations.  Whether a matter of database integrity, copyright, records management or privacy, we possess the professional expertise to stay on top of these issues.  Yet that doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes look for guidance ourselves in identifying the most ethical solution in a given situation.
To this end, an Ethics Task Force appointed by Past-President Rebecca Vargha and led by Barbara Spiegleman has worked to evaluate ethics guidelines used by other information organizations.  From this they were able to suggest items for consideration in creating a set of Information Ethics Guidelines for SLA.  Our next step is to augment their work by asking for the input and involvement of our wider membership.  We need to learn more about their concerns, questions and ideas regarding this issue.

A Need for Ethics Ambassadors
To help facilitate this process we asked all chapters and divisions to appoint Ethics Ambassadors who will help to collect and summarize feedback from our members.  A letter about this went out to the Leadership List just before the holidays and resulted in some good initial feedback and a lot of volunteers.  Some chapters and divisions have had enough interest that they’ve formed committees to aid the Ethics Ambassadors.  We understand that not all units may have the same level of interest so please let us know how we can support you.

We need two kinds of information from our members re: how they have faced challenges involving information ethics.  Both will be used to help craft Information Ethics Guidelines for the Association as well as future PR efforts:  First, anecdotes, stories and examples and second, numbers and statistics. 
The first we hope to collect via Town Hall meetings that initiate global conversations hosted at both the chapter and division levels and the second through a Membership Survey.  We are still tweaking the timeline of what should happen when but here is how it stands now:

Town Hall Meetings and Global Conversations
First, to help the Ethics Ambassadors get things started we plan to provide a national speaker via Click University that the Divisions and Chapters could utilize for their Town Hall meetings.  This speaker might offer an Ethics 101 course that could serve as a learning tool and springboard to further discussions.  The session will be recorded for units to use later if the initial airdate doesn’t fit their schedules or they could invite their own local or industry speakers.  These presentations could be followed by small group discussions and a summary of their feedback later shared in an Information Ethics Report.  The goal is for the Town Hall meetings to take place early this spring with reports due in the fall.

Survey of Wider SLA Membership
Second, while people still have the issue fresh in their minds we plan to send a short survey to all members before the annual conference.  The survey could stay open through and after conference and would generate useful statistics about how members deal with information ethics.  This could be used later in a public relations push to launch a Global Information Ethics Event.

Ethics Summit at Annual Conference
Third, all Ethics Ambassadors and/or representatives from their unit leadership would be encouraged to attend an Information Ethics Summit at the annual conference in Seattle.  This might include an Ethics 201 session led by a panel of speakers and offer a chance for Ambassadors to share and discuss the findings from the Town Hall meetings.  Any themes emerging would become part of the recommendations forwarded by the PR Advisory Council to a task force charged with actually crafting a fluid set of guidelines on Information Ethics for the Association. 

Our goal for this first phase is to be well positioned to launch a Global Information Ethics Event sometime in 2009.  This means working with the Centennial Commission and the Association’s Strategic Planning Initiative to see where this event may best fit and how it should implemented.
Our timeline may be too ambitious - we’ve found that as this idea evolves, so do our expectations of it.  Yet as SLA President Stephen Abrams has said, we have to learn to be comfortable with a little ambiguity because by the time we’re sure of ourselves it will be too late to influence anything.  We feel that during the Centennial Celebration is the ideal time to launch a Global Information Ethics event. 

This has been an exciting project to work on thanks to a dynamic and talented collection of people.  I want to thank all of the PR Advisory Council members who have helped us get to this point over the last several years: 

2004-2006 PR Advisory Council
Kate Arnold
Nancy Minter
Ann Sweeny
2006-2008 PR Advisory Council
Jennifer Aleknavage
Liz Blankson-Hemans
Christina Darnowski
Jennifer Small Evert
Shira Kavon
Michelle Melady

Thanks as well to new members David Shumaker and Heather O’Daniel for their initial enthusiasm.  We also want to thank our Board Liaison Cindy Romaine and SLA PR Director Cara Schatz for helping us to stay tuned to the broader Association vision.

Please feel free to ask questions, post ideas and share with us and one another throughout this process.  We're looking forward to seeing how it takes shape in your hands!

- Jill Strand, PR Advisory Council Chair

Food for Thought

The ALA Code is NOT Enough: Thoughts and Case Studies on Librarian Ethics

Seems that this week there is a lot of buzz on the topic of ethics in the library world.

The Other Librarian has written an extensive post on the subject that brings in an interesting voice and some "out of the box" thinking to the table.  In his post, The OL also links to a two other blog posts on the subject from this week as well.  I suggest that you take some time and read his post as well as the others... While they are a bit focused on public/school librarians, they really get the wheels turning and are at the very least, some (very filling) food for thought. 

What are your thoughts on the post? Do you think the OL is dead-on in his thinking or is he in left field? 

Note: If you run into anything ethics related out there on the Web that you think would be helpful to other EAs, or that you want to post for comments, please do not hesitate to share it! You can send a link along with your comments to any member of the PRAC and we can get it posted for you!

Ethics Working Group: Existing Codes and Recommendations

Study Results and Recommendations for an Ethics Code for SLA

In 2007 SLA started to critically look at this issue and in response to the request of the SLA Board of Directors and President, the Ethics Workgroup carried out an analysis of the ethics codes and guidelines of ten library and information associations. The results of this analysis are available and summarized here. Based on their research, the group made a recommendation that SLA pursue the establishment of ethics guidelines for its members. The report details the characteristics these guidelines should have, and is a comprehensive look at codes, as well as a great background and summary document. 

Back to the Beginning...

Hello EAs...

I thought that it might be helpful for all EAs to get smart on the whole notion of an SLA-sponsored International Information Ethics Day before moving forward with more posts.

A few years ago, the SLA Board of Directors voted to put International Special Librarians Day (ISLD) on hiatus and examine the creation of a new global event that would reflect more accurately the important role that SLA members play in organizations.

This was way before my time, but I am pretty sure that the running sentiment among the membership at that time was that ISLD was not doing what any profession's official "day" should do, and that is: Increase Awareness and Appreciation of (Insert Profession Here).

So... the PRAC decided to tackle this issue and spent a lot of time, put in a ton of work, and eventually made the following recommendation to the SLA Board of Directors in Document A06-39 "The Creation of a New Global Event"

RECOMMENDATION: That the Board of Directors move to initiate a global event highlighting the strategic importance of collecting, organizing, storing, and sharing information in a manner that benefits the stakeholders of a particular organization, institution, or business. In short, the event would focus on information ethics. The event would also highlight the important role that can be played by librarians and information professionals in facilitating the ethical management of information.

I think its really important that all EAs read this entire document and use it as your starting point for the year ahead. I know we have asked you to get started on a journey, but we never told you where you were going or how to get there! (and you still agreed to participate! WOW!)

Well- the A06-39 document will at least answer one of those questions and tell you where you are going. And this blog and the EA community will help you figure out how to get there!

To get started please take a moment to look below at the executive summary... and then when you have more time you can look at the rest of the information contained in the reccomendation

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In examining the value of International Special Librarians Day (ISLD) over the last two years, the SLA Public Relations Committee concluded that any celebration by members of the SLA community should achieve certain goals:

1. it should focus on a topic of ongoing interest to the world community, rather than the profession
2. it should focus on a topic that has relevance within the profession and within our stakeholder communities: the information industry, employers of librarians and information professionals, government and business leaders, academic and research institutions, and the world’s media
3. it should be strategic in scope, so as to reflect the profession’s attention on something that positions information professionals in the spotlight
4. it should allow SLA to partner with like-minded organizations around the world to make the celebration more than an SLA event

These criteria lend very directly to the ongoing efforts of SLA leaders and staff to build momentum in promoting the value of the profession to its stakeholders and to the public. Further, the Committee chose to address the strategic needs of the Association while also addressing the need for a redesigned event to replace ISLD.

The Committee identified information ethics as a topic that is not only relevant today, but one that will continue to rise in the public conscience over time for years to come. Today, the financial reporting of companies around the world seems to dominate the issue; tomorrow, it could be the use of personal health information in order to diagnose a patient. Information ethics will be a topic of continuing concern worldwide.

Thanks again and please feel free to comment here if you have anything to say or share! Lets get this conversation started!

-- Cara Schatz, SLA PR Director

Welcome SLA Ethics Ambassadors!

Hello and thank you for signing up to be an SLA Ethics Ambassador (EA) for your SLA unit.

This blog will serve as a central location for "all things ethics" and we hope that you will comment, ask questions and share your ideas and feedback as often as possible. 

Please DO NOT feel intimidated by this blog, and please DO feel that this blog is a safe, anonymous (if you choose), helpful place for you to come as you navigate the uncharted waters of being an SLA Ethics Ambassador! 

This is where you should come when you have hit a wall and dont know what to do next, or when you are seeing some traction and excitement from your members and you want to keep momentum going...

This blog will be a COP, a support group, an idea bank, FAQ and more!

If you have any ideas on what to include here- please dint hesitate to contact one of the Public Relations Advisory Council (PRAC) members!

For now, we are keeping this content and information for EAs ONLY- and once we are underway with this initiative, we plan to create a blog for all SLA members to use.

Thank you again for your willingness to tackle this important project! We sincerely believe that this is an issue that, as we say in the PR Biz, can be "owned" by SLA members.  Ethical gathering, sharing and use of information will be something that will continue to escalate in importance as the information economy continues to evolve and change.  And as this issue becomes more important to C-level executives- so will SLA members!

Our goal for 2008 is to educate members on ethics and the info pro/librarian's role, and to use the feedback gathered by EAs to create an SLA Code of Ethics.  Once those things have happened, in 2009 we plan to launch SLA International Information Ethics Day in an effort to educate and inform the public about this issue. 

Its going to a busy and productive year, and we thank you in advance for your service to the association and the profession!

The 2008 PRAC