Professional Ethics

The IFLA Code of Ethics for Librarians and Other Information Workers states that “Librarians and other information workers are strictly committed to neutrality and an unbiased stance regarding collection, access and service. Neutrality results in the most balanced collection and the most balanced access to information achievable” (p. 4). As I have gone through this program, I have become increasingly convinced that neutrality, along with access to information, should be at the core of librarianship values. Neutrality should be the ideal that we, as information professionals, strive for. However, over the course of this program, I have also reinforced my belief that neutrality is just that, an ideal: however much we strive for neutrality, our own personal and societal contexts and biases will find a way into our work – after all, we are, to this day, grappling with the inherent biases of so-called “neutral” systems, like the Library of Congress Classification System and Subject Headings. Its creators thought they were making an accurate, neutral system, portraying what was “normal”. Today, many scholars critique it as being rooted in the biases and bigotries of the time in which it was created (see, for example, Emily Drabinski’s 2013 article “Queering the Catalogue: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction” (The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, vol. 83, no. 2))

So, given that neutrality is an unachievable ideal, why is it a cornerstone of my professional values as a librarian? In short: just because we cannot be completely neutral, that ideal is still something we can strive for. Even if we cannot be perfectly neutral, this ethical pillar should encourage us to continue to question and be aware of our biases; even if that will not do the impossible, and make us completely objective sources of information, it is still better than never questioning our biases.

One of the places where neutrality is a thorny issue is in the realm of so-called memory institutions – libraries, archives, and museums. On the one hand, it is important to preserve and present our collective past, and to do so neutrally. On the other hand, not only do the historical collections that we have dept reflect the societal biases and bigotries of the time they were collected, we cannot ignore the fact that the collections we create now reflect our own society’s flaws and blindspots. While many – perhaps even most – archivists, librarians, and museum curators are aware of this and are, in various ways, making concerted efforts to make our collections of collective memory more equitable and to advocate for change in how materials from the past are categorized, collected, and presented, as with neutrality, in history, objective truth is an unattainable ideal. What we can – and must – do, however, is to continue to seek out ways to improve our practices by actively involving a diverse range of communities and seeking ways to fill in gaps that have been left in the record of our collective memory.

Neutrality feeds into collective memory because memory institutions are places where it is especially important for information professionals to strive for neutrality. However, for me, where they really come together is in information access. Part of neutrality is recognizing that it is not the place of information professionals to control or limit the information that people access; it is to ensure that they have to tools to find and evaluate it themselves. Further, with collective memory, preserving our collective history and memory is, to my mind, at least, useless if people cannot access it – that access may look different in different contexts, but the point of archives is to be able to go back and learn from the past through its documents and artifacts. In short, the point of an archive is to maintain and facilitate information access.

Before the widespread use of the internet, the most important role of institutions like libraries and archives was as a physical access point for information: in order to learn something, you needed to go to a physical location where that information was stored, or have it brought, physically, to you. Today, that is still part of the role of libraries and archives, and an important part: even when it feels like all possible information is available online at any time, the physical spaces and collections of libraries and archives are still hubs of information, whether that’s a public library providing computers and internet access to those who don’t have it at home, a prison library providing physical books for inmates, or an archive providing historical, non-digitized documents to researchers. In all of these use cases, information professionals play a role in facilitating information access.

Furthermore, information professionals also play an important role in promoting information access in another aspect: by making sure that information is organized in a way that people can find it and by ensuring that they have the tools to search effectively. In the internet age, the problem is often a glut of information – too much for anyone to actually consume everything when searching. What information professionals do, in organizing information and, in contexts like libraries, teaching information literacy skills, ensures that people are able to meet their information needs and plays a role in combating issues like misinformation.

Information access doesn’t happen on its own: it is something that needs to be actively maintained and supported, but the digital age’s glut of information cuts both ways: “nothing is forgotten on the Internet,” or so the saying goes. In an era where pretty much anything can be shared instantly, to an infinite audience, information professionals need to balance making information accessible to people involved while still supporting individuals’ need for their personal information to be kept private and confidential. As a reference librarian, I have a duty to my library’s patrons to keep their research requests and borrowing habits confidential. As a cataloguer, I have a duty to consider the privacy needs of individuals involved in creating objects, particularly when it comes to whether to include sensitive personal information in a public catalogue entry. While these considerations can be in tension with the principles of memory and information access, it is also a reminder that information professionals must consider, and center, the needs of the people who create and use information resources.