More than 40 Ethics Ambassadors and unit leaders attended the Ethics Summit held at the June 2008 annual conference. Participants listened to presentations from ethics experts Christopher Bauer and Barbie Kaiser before forming small groups to brainstorm items for an Association values statement around information ethics. The PR Advisory Council reviewed all of the output for common themes and selected the following top five values statements best reflecting the Association's core mission, values and objectives:
- Making appropriate use of other peoples' work (e.g. intellectual property) whether created within our organization or externally.
- Transactional Integrity: Acting with honesty, fairness, and in good faith in serving and providing value to customers and negotiating with vendors.
- Respecting the privacy and rights of individuals and organizations in use of e-mail and online discussions and provision of information on user actions to management.
- Educating our constituencies on good information-seeking behavior appropriate to the type of decision being made, legal use of the information and using authoritative information sources.
- Diversity, cultural inclusiveness, respect for differences (e.g. making our sentiments known when we feel that material may be used in a manner harmful or hurtful to any given group.)
Based on input from the SLA Board of Directors, it has been decided that it would be best to launch an international event promoting the value of our profession in the fall of 2009.
SLA is in the process of appointing an Information Ethics Advisory Council, which will continue the initial work the Ethics Ambassadors began in 2008. The charge of the Council and a list of its six members can be viewed at http://www.sla.org/content/community/committe/ethics.cfm.
Those of us involved in the ethics initiative are excited about the possibilities for this leadership role in educating SLA members about information ethics and working to bring this issue to light as one of importance to the business and academic communities.
In the meantime, after hearing some of the suggestions at the Ethics Summit, the PR Advisory Council has come up with the following tools and ideas. They expect that the Information Ethics Council will add to these as well as come up with new and useful resources for members.
- Information Ethics Blog: http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/ethics/. This is open to everyone, including members.
- Ethics Discussion List: This is currently the main source of information and updates with the Ethics Ambassadors. At some point, I hope that this discussion list is opened to all members to serve as the main means of discussing ethical issues members encounter.
- Bi-Weekly Info Ethics Poll in SLA Connections: Plans are in the works for a bi-weekly poll question in the new Information Ethics Corner in SLA Connections. This will be how we will gather statistics such as how many member organizations have an information ethics policy or how many members have been asked to do something they considered unethical in obtaining information.
- Additional Tools & Ideas: SLA is looking into creating a short form and/or list of questions Ethics Ambassadors can use to gather member input on details about ethical dilemmas they have faced in the past.
If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about ethical issues in providing or obtaining information for your users, please contact me.
Wynne Dobyns
San Andreas Chapter Ethics Ambassador
[email protected]
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