I don't really think that what Frank has said quite covers the complexity of
ethical practice nor do I think that it is ever possible, maybe not even
desirable, to operate outside of "politics".
I do think that he is certainly right in stressing the importance of getting
your response right in relation to each individual that uses your service.
That is most likely the first and foremost issue we all need to tackle.
However, all these individual users don't exist in a social vacuum. They
all live in a social context, and as Malcolm has already pointed out, these
social contexts, or communities, vary and everyone belongs to numerous such
communities.
As I see it, any service will need to take into acount those aspects that
transcend the individual, as well as cater for the needs of each individual.
By and large I would assume that no one provides a service to a commnity as
such but they provide a service to the community by servicing the
individuals that constitute that community. However, in order to do that
properly, one needs to have at least an awareness of who and what these
communities are and form a considered response to the communities' needs.
I also don't see why a professional ethical relationship has to be
apolitical. Actually, I can't see how that could possibly be achieved unless
you have a relationship with only yourself. As soon as there's more than
one person involved it gets political of some sort. No matter what you do as
a service, you will always end up positioning yourself somewhere on the
spectrum of political view points, whether it's intentionally or just
because others interpret it as such. Therefore, you may as well be conscious
of it and take some degree of control over it, no matter how limited that
may seem in the grand scheme of things where you can't really change
official policy etc
Just some food for thought...
Carsten Mandt
> I would like to "tease" out from Malcolm Dobson something he said about
> communities and professional ethics, as I sense that he has put his finger
> on something vital. I noted what Frances Hendrix said in reply to Malcolm
> about the importance for a library service to know the community, or
> communities, it was put there for. She is certainly right to say that it
> would be foolish for a library service to shun that basic research.
>
> Having said that, and at the risk of putting words into Malcolm's mouth,
> it
> seems to me that the ethical duty of a librarian, professionally graded or
> otherwise, is to deal with the individual clients who present themselves,
> of their own free choice in the library for what will always be a face to
> face personal transaction. For me, if not necessarily for anyone else,
> this
> is the battleground on which professional ethics is practiced. Yet so much
> of what goes on now in the profession appears to be about the
> implemenation
> of policies emanating from government bodies, policies which are clearly
> designed to effect a solution to something called social exclusion. When
> chief librarians gladly throw themselves into this latter type of activity
> (there is very often money attached to such projects) they seem to forget,
> or affect not to care, that what they are doing is in fact deeply
> political. If challenged on this I imagine that they would say that it is
> for the benefit of the community, and besides, it is official policy.
>
> I have never understood how one can stand in an ethical relationship to a
> community. For me, it is grounded in personl, one to one encounters, and
> it
> needs to be apolitical in the context of a profession (any profession). I
> am hoping that this is what Malcolm was trying to say, but if not I offer
> my apologies to him. The subject is of course open to further
> discussion!
>
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