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Information Access-- Is It Wrong?

April 6, 2008 Somewhere between January 20, 2008, and March 30, 2008, POPLINE, a fact-based public health database maintained by Johns Hopkins University, put a stop on the search term “abortion.” This means that anyone entering the search word “abortion” would receive zero hits, even though information about health and abortion is available in the database.

On April 4, Michael J. Klag, MD MPG and Dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, issued a public statement on the Johns Hopkins website.  He clarified that the decision to put a stop on this specific word search was the result of an inquiry from USAID, which funds POPLINE. The decision did not have Dr. Klag’s approval. As of April 4, the searchability of the contentious word has been restored, and an inquiry has been launched. To quote Dr. Klag, “The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not its restriction.”

I pulled a brief synopsis of USAID’s mission from the official website: “USAID is the government agency providing US economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years… In 1961, the Foreign Assistance Act was signed into law and USAID was created by executive order. Since that time, USAID has been the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms. USAID is an independent federal government agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State.”

For information about USAID’s Faith-Based Initiative, which is “woven into each of the programs that USAID administers,” and was initiated by President Bush, check out this link: http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_partnerships/fbci/index.html

As a recent MLS graduate, I’ve had the ethical standards of librarianship drilled into my brain. In class, students not only reviewed the core values, ethical standards, and professional expectations of the ALA-affiliated librarians that we would someday become, but also followed up by discussing emotionally-charged scenarios within a library setting. It is every librarian's job, we were taught, to provide access to ALL information, regardless of content, intent, or judgment. It is the essence of democracy that each and every person be well-informed decision makers. To uphold this standard, librarians must be able to put aside personal morals and judgments, and assist our patrons in finding the information they wish to access.

To me, it seems that Dr. Klag at Johns Hopkins is upholding both the ethical intent and the public trust inherent in that professional standard of service. He is providing access to information, regardless of socio-political controversies. It is a breath of fresh air to know that these standards of conduct that we learned so carefully are not empty words. That many leaders in the world of library and information science DO value access to information above the various pressures we feel in favor of censorship.

In contrast, seeing my fellow students’ reactions to some of the reference services scenarios we discussed in class was often discouraging. When faced with an imaginary high school student who we knew had a difficult home life, looking like she might have been crying, and asking for a book about suicide, most librarians felt that it was inappropriate to provide the student with the book. To be fair, the scenario was a bit more complex than that, but the idea of withholding information was so counter to all that I’d been taught—I was one of the only people to say “YES, I’d give her the book. After conducting a professional reference interview to see if there might be other books of value to the—as yet unknown—intent of her search!" (And before you assume that I’m heartless, if I’d learned that her intent WAS to commit suicide, as many of us assumed, I’d have found it relevant to also provide the student with information about counseling resources, group therapy, and suicide alternatives, as part of a thorough analysis of information available on the topic.) My fellow library students were outraged. They felt that it is our job to protect children. Period.

I see a strong parallel between this self-imposed mission to protect children from making bad decisions by keeping them from intentionally accessing information about a topic (be it suicide, sex, or Satan)—and the original POPLINE/USAID decision to protect people from making decisions they disagree with by limiting access to information about abortions. Without fact-based analysis, it is impossible to make informed decisions, regardless of age or interest. I was taught that we, as professional librarians, cannot allow our personal beliefs to limit our work as providers of access to information. It is not, my professors said, our place as librarians to judge our library patrons—or their requests. We librarians, along with access-based organizations such as USAID, are the gate-keepers to democracy. That said, I still find it painful at times to provide access to information that I find personally repugnant. And the vehemence with which my fellow students defended their position as protectors of children made me wonder just how well these Library Ethics could stand up in the real world outside our classroom. I guess these dilemmas are the reason that librarians have set up so many support groups.

These groups, including those that fall under ALA’s banner (ex: ACRL, PLA, YALSA, etc), provide support for librarians when difficult or emotional situations do occur. They also remind us of the standards we wish to uphold in our work, and encourage group efforts to find better ways of providing our services. It’s a stressful job at times. Thank goodness so many people are willing and able to do it!

Posted by Staci B Elliott on April 6, 2008 | Comments (0)