THE LIBRARIAN’S DILEMMA

1. THE LIBRARIAN’S DILEMMA Presenters: Jean Borg, Mark Casha, Eric Santucci Other Contributors: Laura Maloney, Du Xiao, Pedro Rosas

2. Introduction to Case study • Head of a Public Library implements internet access • allows those who cannot afford computers to gain internet access • Minors and older people seen watching porn on the library computers regularly • Employees’ views : • Install filtering software? • Professional Association’s Code of conduct states ‘limiting access to library material by minors should not be a reason for diluting the library's collection’ • But filtering is equivalent to buying an encyclopædia and cutting out certain articles that do not meet certain standards • Library does not put pornographic material on the shelves with other books and periodicals • Community Leaders drive for a solution

3. DILEMMA • Do libraries have any legal or moral right to protect children? • Do libraries have any legal or moral right to limit access to material available to adults?

4. Ethical decision model chosen • In our analysis of the case study we have used the Josephson decision-making model1 . • This allows us to focus on the case whilst confronting Ethical theories. • Model phases: • Clarify • Evaluate • Decide • Implement • Monitor and modify 1 Josephson Institute of Ethics. "Five Steps of Principled Reasoning." 1999.

5. Clarify • Whether to limit access to the internet or not • Alternative options • Do nothing • Filtering • Access rights • By user account privilege or • By physical machine separation • Remove internet access

6. Clarify • Librarian’s duties • Duty to Librarian’s Association Code of Conduct • Professional Association’s Code of conduct states ‘limiting access to library material by minors should not be a reason for diluting the library's collection’ • Duty towards community – providing access to information whilst safeguarding community values

7. Clarify • Elimination of patently impractical, illegal and improper alternatives • Do nothing | IMPROPER | ILLEGAL? • Remove internet access | IMPRACTICAL • Develop at least three ethically justifiable options: • Filtering • Access rights on same machine • Physically separate machines in separate rooms • Signs in the library

8. Ethical theories selected • Consequentialism • holds that whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act1 • Deontology • W.D. Ross’ Pluralistic Deontology (the 3 applicable duties out of 7) • Duty of beneficence: A duty to help other people (increase pleasure, improve character) • Duty of non-maleficence: A duty to avoid harming other people. • Duty of justice: A duty to ensure people get what they deserve. 1 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

9. Evaluation • Points to consider • Children prevented from accessing adult sites • Adults allowed to access all information available • Efficient use of public resources • Updating of filtering software etc. • Efficacy of the system

10. Evaluation • Deontological point of view

11. Evaluation (cont.) • Consequentialist point of view

12. Decide • From both the Deontological and the Consequentialist perspectives the best solutions identified are; • Implementing access rights with different user privileges for adults and children • Providing physical separation between computers with full access and computers with restricted access. • Prioritisation of values: • protecting children (given the current scenario) • adhering to library objectives - mainly accessibility of information • efficient use of public resources

13. Decide • To help all library patrons the most • To harm children the least • Worst Case Scenarios: • Implement Access rights • Children piggy-backing over adults • By obtaining adult accounts • By looking over an adult’s shoulder • Possible adult-child illicit interaction due to proximity and account privilege • Physical separation of workstations • Child entering adult area • Adult entering child area • Possible dubious borderline cases

14. Decide (cont.) • Applying 3 “ethics guides”

15. Decide ?

16. Monitor and Modify • To monitor: • Are children really being protected? • How often are pornographic sites being accessed by the adult public? • What increase in workload is the administration staff bearing? • Prepare contingency plans whereby other solutions are implemented if Plan A not working.