Information Ethics

Information Ethics

What is Information Ethics? Well, after reading the article “K.I.S.S. and Information Ethics” by Mary Ann Bell and looking up the definition in the dictionary, Information ethics has been defined as "the branch of ethics that focuses on the relationship between the creation, organization, dissemination, and use of information, and the ethical standards and moral codes governing human conduct in society". How does this have to do with the library? When a problem comes up it is about how you as a professional deal with it. This also comes in play when a book is being challenged in your library or a parent, student, or staff member has a concern about a book or resource.

According to the book written by Richard W. Severson’s titled “The Principles of Information Ethics” there are four principles. They are, Respect for Intellectual property, Respect for privacy, Fair Representation, and Non maleficence (or “doing no harm”).

I have decided to focus on the second principle, Respect for Privacy. This principle has to do with privacy and the nature and dangers of email. I have been working as an Elementary Librarian since August and have not encountered a problem to be able to personally discuss. However when I was working as a classroom teacher my librarian had an incident involving parent teacher email communication. She would send out weekly emails to all of our parents about updates and important info that they needed to know about. She would send the email to our self and put all of the parents email contacts in the blind copy part of the email to keep the emails and parents contact private. Well one day she was trying to send the weekly email and accidentally forgot to BC the parents and sent the email exposing all the contact information for the parents in that class. This then allowed for the parents to hit the reply all button. Well it was not a big deal at the moment but a few days later a parent had a complaint about something and instead of dealing with just the librarian she sent it to the whole class list because of this mistake which then created a heated argument between some parents. My librarian then had to involve our principal and forward all messages to her. She then called the parents that were arguing into the office for a sit down meeting to discuss both their concerns at once. The parents were then able to work out their problems and everything was fine after that. Since this issue I have been extremely careful when sending an email.

I feel that my librarian made one simple mistake and learned a very valuable lesson. It was also a great learning experience for all the teachers in the school because at the next school wide staff meeting we discussed the situation and were all able to learn about the dangers of email and keeping contact information private. I feel while it was a mistake on her part the teacher dealt with the problem with a high level of ethical conduct.