Competency 1: Principles

Library of Congress Reading Room, 1947, Wikimedia.

COMPETENCY STATEMENT

Each graduate of the Master of Library and Information Science program is able to…

…articulate the ethics, values, and foundational principles of library and information professionals and their role in the promotion of intellectual freedom

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Page Contents

• Importance of the competency to me
• What work prepared me to understand and perform this competency
• Evidence
• Conclusion
• References

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IMPORTANCE OF THE COMPETENCY TO ME

In order to help people discover information, and in order to preserve that information so that it can be discovered, information professionals need a solid grounding in the principles of library and information science (LIS). To become a data curator, I have learned not just the practices of LIS but also the ethics; I have read, thought, and written about how to protect the rights of information users and how to balance their needs with the necessity of preserving information.

The world needs information professionals now more than ever. Before 2003, humans created about five exabytes of digital data. By 2013, it was predicted that we would be creating the same amount in two days (Sathi, 2012, p. 3). Approximately 39% of the world’s population is estimated to use the internet as of 2013, and 77% of people in the developed world (Wikipedia, 2014). Our modern world depends on digital information exchange in order to function. Barring a complete collapse of our infrastructure, the amount of information we exchange and its importance to human endeavors will continue to rise.

It is encumbant on information professionals to guide and safeguard digital information exchange as much as possible. In order to do this, we have to be aware of the ethics we espouse, and we need to understand fundamental principles about how to shepherd information.

The primary ethics we should follow are:

• no censoring
• right to privacy
• intellectual property rights
• provenance
• data quality
• equal access to data

Users of information have a right to privacy; as much as possible, their identities should be protected. It is important for people to be able to access information without fear of retribution or judgement. Also, in general, we should strive to allow users equal access to information. If everyone has access to the same information, we have a better chance of understanding each other and of enabling great discoveries and scientific and artistic endeavors. These two values have to be balanced against intellectual property rights, so that people are able to make money on their work or protect their work while it is being developed.

As information stewards, we should strive not to censor data, so that consumers can make up their own minds; at the same time, we need to do our best to preserve quality in datasets, removing inaccurate data where possible or detectable. And at all times we should preserve provenance information; the origin and journey of data can be critical to understanding their meaning.

The principles, ethics and values of LIS apply to datasets as well as physical books, and I will be practicing them in my role as a data curator. ¹

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WHAT WORK PREPARED ME TO UNDERSTAND AND PERFORM THIS COMPETENCY?

Almost all my classes contained some element of learning about the ethics and mechanics of library and information science. I learned library science history in “Information and Society” ([LIBR200)]9; “Information Organizations and Management” ([LIBR204) ]10taught me how to manage information professionals with respect and guidance. “Reference and Information Services” ([LIBR210)]11 and “Resources and Information Services in the Disciplines and Professions” ([LIBR220)]12 taught me about the ethics involved in the work of reference librarians and how put LIS values to work with information customers. “Research Methods in Library and Information Science” ([LIBR285)]13 included information about the ethics of research.

In all my classes there has been discussion of how to find a balance between protecting information and making it available and about the responsibilities of information managers.

In my professional life, I have already run into some of these issues. In 1988, I took a break from undergraduate school to work at Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies on the Hopkins-Nanjing project. I was the project secretary, but because I had computer experience, I was also the de facto IT manager. I created a database for the student records in dBase III, and I found that I had a passion for making sure the information was correct and keeping it up-to-date. It felt as vital to me as it did working with the students themselves when they would come to my desk on their lunch break from day-long intensive Mandarin language training and ask for help with student loans and other paperwork. Cleaning and preserving the database information meant caring for the individuals whose information was represented in the database, and the privacy of that database–which contained social security numbers and other very personal information–was paramount to me.

At my current job I test software that stores flow cytometry experiments. Scientists upload their experiment files to a Cytobank server and can then access the files and use various visualization tools to analyze their data. They can also share these files and analyses, but it is critical that their information is only shared with those whom they choose; often the data are being actively used to develop research and need to be kept private, or shared only with lab partners or principle investigators, before publication. As a software quality manager, I design tests that ensure, among other things, that the data are properly stored, can be easily retrieved, are being analyzed correctly, and are being kept to the sharing permissions designated by the user. I work with the issues of information privacy, ownership, and preservation on a daily basis.

The classes I have taken at SJSU’s iSchool have deepened and strengthened my understanding of these principles. I present a research paper in which I studied the struggles of the members of NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s to create and use new communication technologies, managing information in multiple ways for widely varied recipients using everything from paper and telephones to brand-new satellite networks. Next is an essay about the experience of observing the duties of reference desk librarians and their interactions with patrons, where I get to see the principles of librarianship first-hand. Finally I include a series of discussion posts from my first class where I respond to the ethics and values ideas that we were being taught. These pieces of evidence are a significant glimpse into the grounding I have received in this competency. ²

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EVIDENCE

Term paper: “Information Flow During the Apollo Space Missions”

In my first class I had the opportunity to delve deeper into the history of information science by studying the various methods of telecommunication, which was brand new at the time, during the Apollo missions to the Moon. It was a fascinating view of both paper and electronic communications, of transferring information between engineers and scientists, flight controllers and crew members (astronauts), and the various people managing the effort at the top levels of government. I learned about the earliest spacecraft computers and about the difficulties of keeping track of specifications between a customer and multiple contractors. Studying the difficulties and triumphs of managing communication during our species' first foray off our planet was enlightening and presented lessons learned that I hope to be able to use in my future work with geoscience data projects.

Reference desk shadowing

The first reference and information services class I took included an assignment to shadow (follow) a reference librarian. This was difficult for me because at the time I had both a physical disability (a back injury that made standing for more than a few minutes very painful) and was also plagued by social anxiety. This assignment ended up being a pinacle experience, however, and one I remember most fondly. The class had given me the tools to watch the reference librarians' interactions with patrons with an eye to how successful they were: did they greet the patrons and make them feel welcome? Did they approach each reference question with respect and professionalism, regardless of the needs or age of the patron? Did they take the time to do a reference interview? How did they handle hiccups in the process? The librarians were very open to my observation and I got a real feel for what it might be like to be a reference librarian (something that I have subsequently decided I am not suited to be, though I have great respect for them). I watched the principles and values of library science in action that day, and it was gratifying.

Discussion posts

In the class “Information and Society” (LIB200), we were encouraged to research, think about and discuss issues of ethics and values in LIS. These posts, into which I poured a lot of heart, posed questions and began my thinking on issues that I am still working on today. I have included six of these posts. In the first, we were separated into groups and asked to discuss stereotypes about librarians that we had run into in our reviews of books and films about librarians. This gave me an awareness of the stereotypes that I had accepted growing up without question; since then I take the opportunity to fight the stereotypes when I get the opportunity.

In the professional values and ethics discussion, I talked about how my physical disabilities might be a bar to being a reference librarian; I mused about how much a library should involve itself in politics (my current opinion: there comes a time when it is a moral imperative to become involved, when human rights are endangered); and I discussed how information literacy classes might help protect information freedom by helping patrons understand what they are viewing, instead of having to censor web pages. In another post I discussed how the internet has, in some ways, made information access more perilous when a server or a backup fails.

In a post about intellectual freedom, I wondered where the balance lies between preservation and allowing unfettered access. That is a question that I will be continuously answering and reevaluating the rest of my professional career. In the final post, I analyze a pre-iSchool experience of library research in terms of the information seeking behaviors discussed in class.

These discussion posts provoked analysis and thought into the fundamental principles of LIS: ethics of how best to serve patrons and when to be political, values of the profession, and the overall principle of making information available to people who need it.
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CONCLUSION

The grounding I have received in the foundations of LIS will serve me well in my future work as an information professional. I will remember to treat patrons, employees, and co-workers professionally, with dignity and respect for their information needs. I have familiarity with the issues involved when it comes to balancing preservation against information use; I will be able to consider conflicts with a background of how others have solved this problem, and I am aware that sometimes there is no easy or right answer. I am more aware of copyright laws and information ownership than I was before I started iSchool and will continue to learn more as we grapple with balancing information freedom with the right of authors to profit on their work, and how that can be accomodated in an online environment. I have seen how past information professionals worked with brand-new technologies and communication paths, and I will remember the lessons they learned as I help forge similar methods and policies as our technology continues to evolve. I have learned that indeed, I really love libraries and working with information, and I intend to make that the focus of my career from now on. All of these things should come into play as I work to curate datasets, archiving them with the best possible metadata so that they can be discovered, preserving them for current and future patrons, protecting both their access and their privacy, and helping clients find, access and use these datasets for research to increase our understanding of our world.

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REFERENCES

Last updated: Friday, April 17, 2015

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