Information ethics fortwenty-first century libraryprofessionalsDon FallisSchool of Information Resources and Library Science, University of Arizona,Tucson, Arizona, USAAbstractPurpose – To provide an introduction to concepts and resources that will be useful to libraryprofessionals learning about information ethics.Design/methodology/approach – This paper argues for the importance of information ethics totwenty-first century library professionals. It describes what various authors have said about howinformation ethics can be applied to the ethical dilemmas faced by library professionals.Findings – In order to deal effectively with their ethical dilemmas, library professionals must have agood working knowledge of information ethics. Codes of professional ethics can help to provide suchknowledge, but they are not sufficient. Courses on information ethics must be part of the education ofinformation professionals. Such courses should provide library professionals with an understanding ofethical theories and how they apply to concrete practical cases. Such courses should also make explicitthe connection between information ethics and the mission of the library professional.Research limitations/implications – This paper is not intended to provide an exhaustive list ofpublications on the topic of information ethics and library professionals.Originality/value – This paper provides library professionals with a concise introduction toinformation ethics.Keywords Ethics, Librarians, Librarianship, Information science, Censorship, Privacy,Intellectual propertyPaper type Literature reviewIntroductionLibrary professionals play an extremely important role in society. Their mission isessentially to provide members of society with access to the information that they need(see Ortega y Gasset, 1934/1961). Just like doctors, lawyers, and other professionals,library professionals would like to carry out their mission in an ethical manner[1]. And,like these other professionals, they regularly face ethical dilemmas:.Should we put internet filters on all the computers in a public library (see Doyle,2002)?.Should we tell law enforcement officers investigating potential terrorists what aparticular patron has checked out (see Garoogian, 1991)?.Should we add a book donated by a racist organization to the library collection(see Nesta and Blanke, 1991)?.Should we allow a homeless person that smells very bad to use the library (seeBaldwin, 1996)?The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available atwww.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htmInformationethics23Received 15 November 2005Revised 18 October 2006Accepted 1 November 2006Library Hi TechVol. 25 No. 1, 2007pp. 23-36q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0737-8831DOI 10.1108/07378830710735830.Should we include Holocaust denial literature in the library collection (seeWolkoff, 1996)?.Should we charge for specialized information services in a public library (seeHannabuss, 1996)?.Should we make photocopies of an article for a class when the school librarycannot afford multiple copies of the book itself?.Should we put a warning label on an encyclopedia that contains clearlyinaccurate medical information (see Pendergrast, 1988)?As Diana Woodward (1990) forcefully argued, in order to deal effectively with theseethical dilemmas, library professionals need to be able to engage in ethical reasoning(see Hannabuss, 1996). In particular, since these ethical dilemmas fall within the scopeof information ethics, library professionals need to have a good working knowledge ofinformation ethics. This paper will look at how such knowledge can help them to makebetter decisions.The technologySome of the ethical dilemmas faced by library professionals have arisen because ofadvances in information technology. And there is a lot of good material on the ethics ofinformation technology. Spinello (1995, 1997), De George (2003), and the journal Ethicsand Information Technology, for example, are excellent resources. But most of theaforementioned ethical dilemmas do not involve new information technology to anylarge degree. Even those ethical dilemmas that do involve new information technology(e.g. whether to use internet filters) are clearly special cases of much broader issues ininformation ethics (e.g. intellectual freedom). Thus, even for twenty-first centurylibrary professionals, the ethics of information technology is only a small part ofinformation ethics.Information ethics is essentially concerned with the question of who should haveaccess to what information. The core issues of information ethics include intellectualfreedom, equitable access to information, information privacy, and intellectualproperty. Advances in information technology have made the general population moreaware of these issues. But library professionals have been concerned with these issuesfor centuries.While it is not as hot a topic as the ethics of information technology, some researchhas been devoted to information ethics for library professionals. Hauptman (1988),Mintz (1990), Lancaster (1991), Froehlich (1992), Alfino and Pierce (1997), Smith (1997),Hauptman (2002), the International Center for Information Ethics (http://icie.zkm.de),the annual Information Ethics Roundtable (http://www.sir.arizona.edu/ier/), and theJournal of Information Ethics, for example, are all good resources. But there is oneimportant type of resource on information ethics with which all library professionalsought to be familiar (see Hannabuss, 1996, pp. 28-29): namely, the codes of professionalethics that have been adopted by the various organizations to which libraryprofessionals belong (see, for example, AALL, 1999; ALA, 1995; ASIST, 1992; MLA,1994; SAA, 1992).LHT25,124The code sA code of ethics is a list of guiding principles for ethical behavior. For example, a codeof ethics tends to contain statements of the form “You shall do X” (e.g. “You shallprotect intellectual property rights”) or “You shall not do Y” (e.g. “You shall not censorlibrary resources”). Codes of professional ethics for library organizations are mainlyintended to guide the behavior of library professionals. However, these codes serveother functions as well. In particular, these codes of professional ethics inform thepublic about what library professionals are committed to doing.In a survey of library professionals, Wallace Koehler et al. (2000) found that thereare differences in which principles are emphasized, but that