1 11th Nordic Conference on Information and Documentation, Rekjavik, Iceland, 30 May – 1 June 2001 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for

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11th Nordic Conference on Information and Documentation, Rekjavik, Iceland, 30 May – 1 June 2001

Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for

Reconsideration

Dr. Robert W. Vaagan Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science

Oslo University College

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College

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Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration

Ethical issues increasingly important Infoethics and CIPA UNESCO Infoethic Code of Conduct in 2003 Information specialists, including librarians must have

procedures and standards to confront ethical challenges posed by privacy, authenticity, confidentiality, copyright, intellectual property rights, grey literature and electronic filtering


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UNDHR Article 19 Freedom of Expression IFLA/FAIFE: 26 national library associations with

codes of conduct/ethics Among Nordic countries only Sweden’s Librarian

Association (BF) has adopted code of ethics Other Nordic countries: existing legislation and

standards seen as sufficient


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Norwegian Library Association rejected proposed ethical guidelines in 1990

Reflected ALA and IFLA/FAIFE advocacy of freedom of expression and rejection of all forms of censorship

Censorship conditionally accepted in ICCPR and ECPHRFF

Censorship conditionally accepted in Norwegian Constitution and in revised Article 100 by committee in report to parliament


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Failure to adopt ethical guidelines in 1990 resulted in ethics becoming non-issue in Norwegian librarianship

Quality control, service agreements and value statements have instead taken precedence

Librarianship thus ”ethically derailed”: ethics obligatory at universities and many university colleges at preparatory level

More than 1/3 of Norwegian business enterprises have ethical guidelines


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1047 general or public libraries (folkebibliotek): material free of charge, users are children and adults, material selected for quality,variety and relevance

362 research or academic libraries: guidelines set by National Office for Research Documentation, Academic and Special Libraries

But no written guidelines in r&a libraries for collection development possibly a problem seen in conjunction with absence of ethical guidelines


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National Office for Research Documentation, Academic and Special Libraries: working group to review need for ethical guidelines in r&a libraries

Many librarians express need for guidance on ethical issues linked e.g. with electronic filtering, collection building, relations with authorities, suppliers

Many see need for ethical guidelines in r&a libraries Still too early to project whether ethical guidelines, if

implemented, will be emulated by g&p libraries


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Science and research ethics increasingly relevant globally

Misconduct in science (fabrications, plagiarism, salamization) on the increase?

Expanded educational and knowledge management roles for r&a libraries/librarians worldwide

Grey literature will expand due to prohibitive costs in normal scholarly publishing

Los Alamos electronic physics archive emulated in medicine and biology


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Librarian may be first to choose ”grey” book/article, from open-access archives before peer review

Greater circumspection by librarians called for in acquisitions and in negotiating electronic subscriptions

Librarians well qualified to detect cruder forms of salamization and plagiarism?

Librarians perhaps better qualified than researchers or administrators to see pitfalls in bibliometrics and author-generated metadata systems


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Conclusions Many reasons why Norway should reconsider

absence of ethical guidelines for librarians Infoethics, IFLA/FAIFE membership, many librarians

have expressed need Librarians in a&r libraries must have procedures and

standards to deal with possible misconduct in science Advocacy of freedom of expression combined with

possibility of certain forms of censorship

Documents

1 11th Nordic Conference on Information and Documentation, Rekjavik, Iceland, 30 May – 1 June 2001 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for