What to do when two people want to use the single-user password available for an online service? Or when you're asked to contact a competitor for information using your home computer or personal phone and not identify yourself? Or when a user's colleague wants to know what information s/he has requested from you? Perhaps you have encountered other situations in which you have wondered what was the "right" thing to do or whether the action you took was really OK. What is ethical behavior in the workplace and how does it apply to using and providing information services? For that matter, what are "ethics" and does everyone experience them the same way?
These are questions that SLA has decided to address in a year-long initiative through its chapters and divisions to educate its members on ethics. By hosting dialogues, town meetings, surveys and reviewing reports from the trenches, SLA hopes to understand the ethics challenges members face and to identify concepts that should be included its own ethics code or set of guidelines as well as resources to assist members to resolve the ethics issues they encounter in their libraries and organizations. Another major goal is to enable SLA members to become "ethics ambassadors" in their organizations, providing exemplary role models for others who also encounter ethics issues in their positions.
Information ethics has become a topic of increasing concern, one that impacts SLA members on a daily basis. SLA currently refers members to the ethics guidelines of the American Library Association, the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP), the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), and the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) (following the article at http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-95/bjorner.html). Realizing that these codes do not sufficiently address situations our members encounter, the Board of Directors wants to take the lead in recognizing the ethics of acquiring and using information and plans to draft a code of ethics or a set of ethics guidelines that addresses information ethics. For this, they will rely on members' experiences, needs and suggestions.
The San Andreas Chapter will host a Town Hall meeting on information ethics on Tuesday, June 3, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at Santa Clara University. Geoffrey Bowker, Executive Director, Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University, provide us some background on ethics in information service before we break into groups for general discussion of ethics issues we experience and how we resolve them. There will be no charge for this meeting, and light refreshments will be served. As soon as details are finalized, the meeting announcement will be posted to the Chapter's discussion list. For a basic understanding of what ethics are, members should read the article, "A Framework for Thinking Ethically," posted at http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework.html before attending the meeting.
Please plan to attend the Town Hall meeting on information ethics on June 3. I look forward to a lively discussion.
Wynne Dobyns
Ethics Ambassador
San Andreas Chapter, SLA
[email protected]
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