Recommended read:
Blair, Sheila. "Toward a Code of Ethics for Cataloging." Technical Services Quarterly 23, no. 1 (2005): 13-26. [Pre-print from the Haworth Press through the UIUC Library Gateway, accessed 25 July 2005.]
I thought this was an excellent article, well worth reading. I do have some issues with it which I’ll get to later.
ABSTRACT. Cataloging is the foundation of librarianship, and catalogers are professionals with special skills that set them apart from the profession in general and give them unique ethical responsibilities. They have power to help or harm on an increasingly global scale, yet very little has been written about the ethical issues faced by catalogers. This paper explores the ethics of cataloging, including encoding, subject analysis, authority control, and copy-cataloging, and examines descriptive and normative aspects in view of James Moor’s just-consequentialist theory and J.J. Britz’s ideas on ethical issues relating to intellectual freedom. A code of ethics is offered (13).
Now before some reference librarian or children’s librarian, for instance, gets upset at the tone of the statements in the abstract, I am fairly certain that the author would also argue that each type of librarian, or aspect of librarianship at least, has its own special skills and subsequently unique ethical responsibilities. I most certainly would argue that that is the case. Nonetheless, the article is focusing on catalogers and they do have some inherently unique ethical responsibilities.
After demonstrating that cataloging is a profession, Blair goes on to state that "[c]atalogers are responsible for two powerful areas—access and naming" (15). Responsibility for these areas carry ethical implications. The increasing worldwide use of our resources increases this ethical responsibility.
Throughout the paper, Blair points out specific ethical implications of cataloging practices and functions.
The author describes the function of a code of ethics, and then provides a "Cataloging Code of Ethics," which lays out who we are responsible to, the hierarchy of these obligations, and ten specific tenets of the code.
My issues with this paper primarily come on p. 17. Here, in the "Ethical Implications" section, the author is discussing truth and viewpoint. She states that, "Truth is defined as "conformity with facts, agreement with reality," notes Britz…" (17). A bit further down the page, we get, "Tavani summarizes Moor’s ethical framework as first deliberating from an "impartial point of view" to determine if a policy "does not cause any unnecessary harms to individuals and groups, and supports individual right, the fulfilling of duties, etc." (17).
There are serious issues with both of those statements; ones which I would fully expect an author to have some grasp of before writing an article of this type. I am willing to let them pass for the time being, as this is an initial attempt, and a darn good one, at opening a dialogue on the unique ethical responsibilities of the cataloging profession. But as part of the dialogue to instantiate and institute such a code of ethics the use of these concepts would need to be further discussed.
Considering the use of the other citations she used regarding concepts such as the "majority view which results in a lopsided Western, Christian, white, heterosexual male presumption" in subject headings and classification (19), I would not expect the author to entertain the misguided, and extremely harmful, view that there exists an "impartial point of view." Suffice it to say that this view of Truth is equally problematic.
All in all, this is an excellent article, which bears close reading and subsequent discussion. I would love to see a Code, such as Blair has espoused, as a central guiding light for catalog practitioners and theorists.
